One run, 5 PBs and a curry!

Today has involved less exercise than almost any other day this year - the plans for a bike ride this afternoon didn't materialise for various reasons, but it's still been a fun and successful day nonetheless. 


The day started with my 11th consecutive Parkrun (I've run the event every week since first discovering it in November) and it was one of the most memorable so far (though they've all been great!). 


Despite the warnings of rain/sleet overnight and a frosty start this morning, it actually turned out to be another beautiful morning, almost perfect for running. There were several regulars missing from our group this morning: Andy Next Door, Martin, and my Mum and Dad couldn't make it, Ian was cheering on from the sidelines, rather than running this week, and Mark joined my parents on the list of my friends / family who've volunteered as marshals - loads of respect to him for doing it, (the boys and I are volunteering for the first time the week after next as it's half term). 


That left 7 of us in our group this morning. James, Kieran and I, Ellie & Stuart (regular training partners), Gary from work, and for the first time, Jason, who I've been encouraging for weeks to join us, and who finally made it today. 


Having paced James (my eldest, who's 14) to a massive new PB last week, today I'd promised to try to do the same for Kieran (12) who had gone from having a PB 3 seconds slower than his big brother, to nearly a minute slower in one race last weekend. James decided to try to run with Gary (who's a very strong runner), so set off ahead of us, while Stuart (the strongest of all of us) stayed pacing Ellie a bit further back, while Kieran and I were in the middle. By the time we set off, Jason, who was walking with his dog, hadn't made it to the start, so ended up starting after everyone else, right at the back!


James and Gary quickly built a big lead over Kieran and I, but we weren't concerned, as we were bang on our target pace for the first mile (8:10), despite there being a really good turnout again this week and the first 1/2 mile being very crowded as we ran past people who'd set off too quickly and were slowing down. 

A typical view around 1/2 a mile from the start.

As we started the second mile, the gap to James stopped growing, as we upped our pace, and Kieran started to really get into his running - Gary, meanwhile had left James a bit behind, in his own quest for a PB. 


As we approached 1/2 distance, the views across the large lake were great, and I was able to capture a fairly decent picture of just how inspiring the scene was: 

The sun rises over the large lake at Colwick

We reached 1/2 distance in 12:20 - well on schedule for Kieran's target (under 25 mins), and continued to maintain the gap to James as we passed Mark, who was on marshal duty at the 2 mile point (I managed to divert off the course slightly for a quick high five!). 


As we started our second lap of the small lake, it was clear that Kieran was going to smash his PB, as long as he didn't hit the wall in the final mile, and fortunately there was no sign of that happening, despite our pace continuing to increase (our third mile was a 7:30). With 1/2 a mile to go, we saw Ian, Sarah and Max cheering everyone on from the sidelines (and I managed to divert for another high five), and by this point I was confident that Kieran was going to easily smash his previous best. 


And so it proved - after surging past a more experienced runner in racing flats with 200m to go, I told Kieran that if he kept going all the way to the line, I'd let him beat me, and that's exactly what he did - stopping our watches at 24:22, a massive 38 seconds better than his previous time! He was delighted with his run, James (who'd looked to be 15 or 20 seconds ahead of us all the way), was less happy with his performance, despite me telling him that I thought he could also have beaten his own record. Similarly Gary, who was aiming for a 23:00 run, was disappointed as he knew he hadn't made that time. 


We waited for Ellie & Stuart to make it to the finish, before setting off to take the boys to Music School. Just before we left, I called Jason to find out where he was, (and it soon became apparent he had no idea!), but fortunately he wasn't far away from the car park, so we gave him directions and headed on our way. 


I was confident that Kieran would have a massive PB when the official results came through at lunchtime, but had no idea about everyone else.  As it turned out, of the 7 us who started the race, this morning, 5 of us got PBs - and the only 2 who didn't were Stuart and I, who were acting as pacers (it's our turn to race next week!).

Here are the star performances:


Gary: 23:16 (new PB by 26 seconds)
James: 24:02 (new PB by 5 seconds)
Kieran: 24:22 (new PB by 38 seconds)
Ellie: 28:44 (new PB by 4 seconds)
Jason: 42:34 (new PB as it was his first event!) 


Both boys were rightly delighted with their performances, and I was too - there can't be many things more rewarding than running with your kids and seeing them set new records! :)


The rest of the day was spent relaxing with the boys and preparing for tonight's curry night - that involved lots of cleaning / tidying (something I've been neglecting a lot recently), before I could start on a cooking a mountain of food. 


I make curry recipes up as I go, but they always seem to be appreciated, tonight I concocted "Chicken Normal" and "Spicy Surprise", and everyone was very complimentary about how they came out (and I thought they were pretty good too)! It was already after midnight when the party wound down, meaning that I was a bit scuppered getting this post done on the correct #Janathon day - at least I've managed to get it written (semi-coherently I hope!) before going to bed, which is exactly what I'm going to do now!