A bit of a disappointing parkrun. There's always another one coming up soon though!

I got a parkrun in on the weekend, but ended up being disappointed with my time of 21:43 (PB on that course is 21:29 from 2 weeks ago).

I was really "up for" the event and had kind of planned the training week to be in fighting form for the Saturday morning, hence why I'm a bit disappointed.  I did 1.5 mile warmup, with some short blasts at my 5K race pace and I toed the start line feeling good.  I don't usually do this type of warm-up but I'm sure the warm-up wasn't the issue for my disappointing time. 

Unfortunately, I did the classic beginner mistake and set off far too quickly and got slower as the event went on.  Splits were 6:31, 7:00, 7:18 and 52secs for the last bit.  I glanced at my watch in the first mile and saw I was doing 5:45 which is just stupid and I basically struggled from then on.  I can't really explain it except to say I got caught up with a bunch of quicker runners in the first half a mile or so and so I didn't run my own event (I'm being careful not to call the parkrun a race....!)

Maybe it's misplaced, but I'm convinced I've got a 20:XX in me, even if it's 20:59 which is what I was hoping for on Saturday as the conditions were perfect and, like I say, I was feeling good.  This would be 6:45 min/mile pace.  I'm basing this on what I can do 5x1K intervals in, with each interval being at 6min/mile, sometimes quicker.  Am I deluded that I think I've got a 20:59 in me?  I hope not!

I'll tell you one thing.  The pain from a fast (for me) 5K is a whole different kind of pain compared to a marathon.  Not worse pain, just different.  I genuinely thought I was going to throw up at the end!

Nevermind - there's always the next one.

This week is a fairly standard week, and it has cooled down.  At the moment though there are some very sharp showers so that may be a shock to the system, but I prefer that to the blazing heat.