No doubt the race of the weekend was the Leeds Abbey Dash. My own interest in this was purely other people as training partners, club mates and local athletes and fellow competitors made the dash to Leeds!
Well done to my training partner Phil Musgrave who clocked a great 36.35 pb smashing over a minute and a half off his previous pb set at Kirby Moorside earlier this year. A nice reward for someone who has put a lot of effort into his running - he has "tasted" his lungs on more than one session with me!
The course and guaranteed quality of the field means this is a fast course with pb potential....conditions today were also excellent so there were personal bests and seasons bests all round. As is the case with a lot of Sundays at the moment my priority is junior football as my two boys are both playing league football so the Abbey Dash was not an option for me.
Instead I opted for a crack at the local Albert Parkrun. Last time I did this was on the 1st January this year where I won in 17.10. My pb on the Albert Park course is a 16.54 set last year.
Set off with intent and once I got rid of the three or four junior runners who can be forgiven for going off at breakneck speed and the two or three "senior" runners who really should know better than to go off at sub 5 minute miling and drop off after the first 200m I settled into a hard but manageable pace (5.17 for the first mile). 2nd mile was a 5.21 and then the crowds of people in the race (over 350 regularly now attend compared to the 20 or so that attended the first one - a race which I won as well!) meant that a slowing down was inevitable. I made the mistake of calling ahead at one point to a group of five youngsters who were fully taking up all the available path which actually had the effect of sending them in all different directions..a bit like sheep being disturbed! I do think park run is a great initiative and lots of people get into running this way so please dont take this as a criticism in any way but the numbers do make for a difficult last mile - on the plus side there was no shortage of encouragement from people as I wound my way through the crowds! My time for the 3rd mile was 5.26 but on turning the corner at the bottom of the lake I found a clear path and managed a good strong kick to finish in 16.42. A win and a park run pb by 12 seconds but not quite a Vet 40 pb which remains at 16.32.
My park run record now stands at 21 events and 9 wins! Still a long way off the 100 T-shirt !
Training this week has been very good with another 50 mile week. Plenty of quality this week though with two interval sessions ( a 5 x 800m session and a 4 x 1 mile session).
This weeks aim is to continue to build some on the quality....I am also going to do a Hill Session! See my "school report" post of a few weeks ago! Ever onwards!
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