parkrun: it's this free, weekly, timed community event that run almost entirely by volunteers.
This morning we volunteered. We went along to one of our local parkruns and learned how they are doing the pre-event set up on this convoluted, undulating trail run.
We know the bush it's held in and the course itself quite well but we walked with the Run Director (aka RD, the person in charge of the day's event) and one other person who was also getting "trained" and together, the four of us, rather inefficiently, placed arrows, cones and ribbons along the 5km course.
We met at 5:30 am, sorted out the signs so they'd be in the order we needed them and then began our walk. We chatted a lot, occasionally missing spots that needed marking and having to double back. We discussed where the ribbons should go and how hard it was to get the spiked signs into the very dry earth. We were in no hurry and it was a fairly sociable volunteer experience in the end.
Once we were back at the start/finish area we had to set up the start line with the parkrun flags. Then it was time for a big mouthful of water as the people I knew poured into the area. I said some hellos, gave out some hugs and did some short running drills that my body was ready for after that long walk-run, warm-up-disguised-as-an-event-set-up.
Soon enough it was time for the RD to do her briefing for the whole group. To her credit she spoke all the necessary rules in the form of a Christmas poem that her and her husband wrote from scratch last night.
Since I felt okay and was free to run as fast as I wanted (with all my volunteering done) I headed towards the front of the pack, tucking in behind a dozen men and the two fastest looking girls I could see. (And I do mean girls not women; the fastest looking females there this morning were 11-14 years old 😂).
When the RD said, "Go!" I started my watch and ran a reasonable pace in the small crowd down the wide, uneven, downhill track. I took it easy crossing the dry creek bed and then enjoyed the space as we began to cruise up the first gentle uphill.
I had a plan when it came to achieving a PB (personal best): play to my strengths.
I know this course well ✔️
I'm good at shifting up and down gears ✔️
And I can run downhills fast ✔️
So that's what I did. This of course lead to me walking up hills much to the dismay of other runners I knew who think we should all just run the while way.
I'm not sure if they found it amusing or infuriating but I'd overtake them on every downhill after they'd overtaken me on every uphill 😂
I loved it, treating the whole thing as a game for me to play to see how fast I could go while keeping my heart rate in check.
At some point I'd been in front of the pack of girls and a couple of the faster women but they had gained a couple of minutes on me and there was no getting it back; my heart was tired. So instead of pushing to beat some arbitrary females of varying ages I didn't even know by name I kept doing what I'd been doing all morning: I listened to my body.
I had in mind that I needed to beat 29 minutes something; my fastest time on this course. But as it turns out, that was my time on the day of the first trial run and my official fastest time was actually 36 minutes something.
So when I crossed the parkrun finish line this morning in an official time of 27:43 I had, officially, smashed my own course PB.
Yaaaaaaaay 🥳🥳🥳
It was hot, hard work but it was fun!! And... now I probably need to wait 'til the other side of our crazy-hot Brisbane summer before I do another PB attempt 😄
{Photos of run data taken as screenshots on my phone of Gain Connect. All other photos taken by 