Little bit behind with my updates but getting through them.
6th April
My training plan called for a 5k flat out. This meant either finding a race or going solo, pushing that hard solo is almost impossible, so the 5k park run in Richmond was the answer.
I go the Skytrain down nice and early as didn’t really know where I was going. I did’t notice anyone looking like they were going for a run but at our stop so many people obviously were.
I made two friends. The first was an old lady from the UK who was here on holiday. She was determined to add a Vancouver park run to her list. The second an English girl who was running the event for the day. As it turned out a very high percentage of people there were English which was funny but everyone was super friendly.
I spent 25 mins warming up as it was absolutely freezing, blowing a gale and raining slightly. Once this was complete we lined up for the briefing and start.
One side note worth mentioning was a guy who was doing his second park run of the day. He had done the Sydney park run at 9am and then flown to Vancouver to do this one. Time travel is awesome :)! Something I have added to my bucket list.
And we were off…
Didn’t really know my target pace but I was in the lead for about the first 400m and then was overtaken. However, I didn’t mind too much as having someone to chase is so much easier. I had to work hard to get back on his shoulder but stayed there until the half way mark.
I was feeling really strong as we made the turn back in to the head wind so pushed in to the lead and the guy in third, now second, came with me. On the way back up the river we were punching a brutal head wind the whole way but my strength training is really starting to pay off. I felt awesome punching the head wind and I knew I was going to be able to hold this pace.
As we approached 1k to go I kicked on and the guy in second couldn’t hold the pace, he did kindly point me in the right direction though when I was about to go wrong. I knew from there I had it in the bag but wanted a PB so gave it everything I could.
Sprint finish and I was home in 18:26.
Nice to get a win and hopefully more to come this year but more importantly I was super happy with how my training is progressing and my splits were very steady. I also smashed my PB of 19:45 which is great.
I feel I probably might be able to go quicker on the ideal course. Notes about this course: 3 U-turns (slow), strong wind (slow), very flat (fast), light rain(perfect conditions as kept cool).
After a quick warm down with some of the others it was to Tim Hortons for some post race donuts and social. They are a great group and I would love to go more but unfortunately it doesn’t work with my training as I do longer slower runs, but I hope to make it back at some point 🙂
Adventures of a fishing triathlete 