Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a fluke!

Yesterday I did the Adidas Women’s Challenge in Hyde Park and managed another sub-30min 5k – woo hoo!

I know several of my lovely followers will say ‘I told you so’ but you can never be too sure or cocky about these things – you can have a bad day, you can have a good day, it may be too hot, too cold, too wet to achieve your goals or the course may be just that little bit short of 5k as it was at Parkrun the other week. I am happy to confirm that yesterday’s was spot on, in fact if anything it was slightly over by the time you’d done all that weaving in out to get past slow runners.

The Women’s Challenge is mass participation event for women with a heavy focus on taking part and raising money for charity rather than racing for a time – if you weren’t planning on being in the top 75 you needed to time yourself. I entered on a whim when Adidas as new Parkrun sponsors offered free entry to lady parkrunners and although it was fun and good to get sub-30 (29min 38sec to be precise) I’m not sure I particularly want to do it again. There are start pens based on your expected finish time – I went in the 25-30min zone and expected that everyone in front of me would be running at a sensible pace and not walking. How naive of me – it seems several people over estimated their abilities and within just a couple of hundred metres there were already people walking! The first Km based in something of a blur as I was trying to dodge slower runners and find some space to be able to run at the appropriate pace to match my goal. Disappointingly after the first 1.5k my Garmin told me that my average pace was only 6.25 min/k and so I was going to have to severely up the pace for the next 3.5k in order to get sub-30 – not my ideal race tactic, normally the further I go the slower I get. Happily the relatively flat course round Hyde Park kept me going and I was able to get my average down to below 6 min/k and maintain the pace until the finish! 🙂

We finished along the Serpentine and were rewarded with a rather nice goody bag, although the contents were a little disappointing in that there was nothing that could be eaten immediately in them – just cereal and tea-bags! I then made my way back to the start area to meet up with chief supporters, Badwabbit and Fairweather runner, and fellow runner, Plustenner. The morning was finished off with a cup of tea in the Lido cafe which turned out to be a wise plan as no sooner had we sat down at our inside table than the heavens opened and all the people on the outside tables were suddenly looking a bit sad, wet and foolish!

All in all a good day and now looking forward to Parkrun on Saturday to see if I can get another sub-30 time there.