I woke up feeling good.
As I jogged to the Tesco to pick up bananas for today’s event I felt a melody in the air and a spring in my step. I could just tell it was going to be an amazing parkrun day.
Little did I know it would be a parkrun world record day!
Burgess parkrun is a surprisingly fast single-lap course in a scenic park in London. I was in the mood to run fast but this wasn’t going to be where the world record would be set 😀
The world record was about to be set by Nick Griggs at Victoria Park in Belfast with a time of 13mins 44secs. Victoria parkrun is three laps of a lake and clearly a fast course. In December 2023 Ciara Mageean set the current women’s parkrun record of 15min and 13sec there.
Parkrun technically does not classify times as world records preferring to describe events as a ‘run not a race’. However you’re able to see the results of all events in finish order and whilst you’re only ever racing yourself, running with people can lead to duals to the finish funnel 🙂
Of course, parkrun is so much more than racing and times and this was brought home when a tourist came up to me to say hello. It was Andrew Ferrier who I’d met at Eastbourne parkrun back in January 2023. We’ve been firm Strava friends since following each other on our running journeys. It was great to see him and his crew again at my home event. Parkrun really is the gift that keeps giving and I tried to get this across as I did the new runners welcome.
Josie, today’s Run Director went through the standard stuff before handing us over to the time-keepers and we were off.
With a lot of participants, the start of Burgess parkrun can become congested and it can take about 1k for the field to fully thin out. This can be helpful in preventing you going off too quickly. As we went under the Bridge to nowhere I was able to start lengthening my stride, my cadence quickened and just like that I was in the zone.
This is my home parkrun and I know every rise and curve of it. With wide paths and beautiful planting it’s a joy to run in with my effort creating harmony with my surroundings. The new shoes (ASICS Gel numbus 26) kept responding driving me through the field. I don’t know how Nick Griggs was feeling but I felt great!
I clocked in a 21min 33sec, a long way off the new world record however much quicker than I’ve run in a long time. The fatigue from my recent marathon seems to have left my legs and the prospect of hunting my parkrun 5k pb is definitely a goal for next year ideally to coincide with my 500th run 🙂
Next week I’ll be back at Burgess parkrun for my daughter’s parkrun birthday because parkrun is much more than a race.
Stay well and happy running
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