We get up early and drive across to Lister Park for the inaugural Bradford parkrun. Only takes about ten minutes longer than getting to Hyde Park. We leave the car on the street as we’re not sure if there are any on site facilities. It’s a glorious sunny day, though slightly chilly. The park looks delightful; they don’t half do good parks in Bradford. There are plenty of familiar faces both amongst the runners and the helpers as quite a few Leeds parkrunners have made it across to see what Bradford has to offer. Chris and Barney from the Thursday group are running and are talking about volunteering next week.
Rob gets us off to a timely start after putting his own stamp on the starting instructions. There’s no getting away from it, there is a hill and you do have to run up it three times. However, you only run up about a third of it before you turn off onto a slightly uphill straight. You then get the benefit of the downhill and then a run along a slightly downhill straight at the bottom. The finish line is a bit of a beast as it’s a short uphill and I imagine I’d regularly be overtaken on this bit if I was to run here regularly.
I finish ninth in just shy of 20 minutes and for one week at least I’m record holder for my age group. I held the record for my age group for a single week at Leeds, before Bernie took the honour. Henry and Marcellus then took it way beyond my capabilities. It’s unexpected here as Henry was running, but fortunately he’s hit 55 and is no longer in my age group.
Jaz does timer and Tom hands out the tokens while Helen does photography. Great support from Julie at the corner at the foot of the hill right where you need a bit of a boost.
I needn’t have run a warm down lap as the “café” is a brisk walk away up a vertical climb. There’s a café in the park so hopefully they’ll open that up on a Saturday morning once they see that there’s enough business to make it worth their while.
Weight 70.9 kg
Total Mileage 29 miles
Long Run 14 miles
Long Run Pace 8:33
Days without alcohol 61
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I enjoyed reading this entry ...and I am also pleased to use your stats and compare it to my 10 miler yesterday that I did after a fairly long time faster for a change. 8:37 average pace...heart monitor really helped controlling the effort!
ReplyDeleteWas so happy that I text Mick and then did another 5 miles at an 8.45 pace. Well...you are a super fast guy anyway..this must have been your easy run
London here we come!