Challenge Anneka

Following my last post, this one was going to be titled “for the habitual voyeur” and then the next one next week would be called “of what is known as…”, with a theme of Parkrun throughout the three. Setting this out earlier in the week, “Confidence is a preference” is absolutely fine for a post title, but I now have buyer’s remorse and can’t go ahead with this weeks proposed title, fearing it infers I’m some kind of regular Peeping Tom.

Moving on then, Parkrun. It’s not about you joggers who go round and round and round… well, actually, it really is. 

The Parkrun I’m talking about is a couple of laps of the local park and my personal best of 21 minutes and 40 seconds means I need some serious split times of 4 minutes and 20 seconds just to break even. 

This needs some proper thinking then. 

My last running goal was a new years resolution thing, so will look at breaking my old Parkrun record at some point in the new year. I reckon I’ll need at least an eight week training period running up to the race, built on the back of some baseline fitness. 

You’d think I would have that baseline fitness already, having come off the back of that 10km race not long ago. While I’ve not been out running much and have been enjoying the less healthy side of food and drink recently, I’m sure I’m still reasonably fit. However, I will be taking a planned break from the blog and from running for a couple of weeks, so will likely have to rebuild from that point. 

No problem there, I just have a timing thing to work out – the beauty of Parkrun is that it’s weekly, so completely flexible how I aim for it. 

When I’m back and running, there will be around eight weeks to Christmas. This gives an opportunity to hit the Christmas Eve Parkrun. More likely, I’ll look to start training proper in the new year and an eight week training plan to take me to March-ish. 

Which means an eight week period between now and Christmas to get that baseline fitness back up ahead of the festive cheese-eating season! 

Confidence is a preference…

If you look back over my recent posts you’ll have seen my yearning to go back to running for fun, going back to a time when I can run with music blasting in my ears, without a care for pace, distance, or direction. 

Regretfully, this doesn’t appear to be the case in reality. There are two things going on here:

1. I haven’t been for a single run “for fun” since I completed my target 10km race a couple of weeks ago
2. There are a series of photos taken of me a few hundred metres from the end of that race, and in those pictures I am smiling; possibly even grinning.  

Point two here is interesting – the race was fun! The race was hard, but I was enjoying it. I had no music on, I cared a lot about my pace and where I was, I was focussed on getting that time. 

While I would like to go back to running for the sake of running (and I really do), I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a good boot up the bum in the form of a goal to get me there. 

This week I’ve been thinking about what that goal could be, what is a realistic goal that is going to inspire me as much as the 12 year old 10km pb challenge has done?

To answer that, I looked up some of my old records. And one stood out. 

Parkrun. I haven’t been to Parkrun for a long time (I think I wrote about this previously, life is different for me on Saturday mornings these days), but when I last did, I set a time. A good time. Possibly too good of a time. 

Ten years ago I ran the 5km race in 21 minutes and 40 seconds. It feels like a pace far above what I could hope to achieve now. But it is there isn’t it; it’s a goal. I’ve just beaten a twelve year old record for my 10km time, so why not this. 

Sounds like it’s time to start a meticulously detailed training plan again – perfect!