It was really quite warm today. Fourteen degrees by the time I'd finished. I wished I'd worn short sleeves. The weather was much better than my last outing with far less wind to contend with and no flooding, although the paths were still wet. Pretty good conditions in fact apart from the top corner of the back straight which was very wet and muddy from the Junior Parkrun they do on a Sunday morning. It's this bit of track that obscured my Garmin screen every lap.
Because it was considerably warmer than it has been, there were a lot of people in the park but thankfully all the dog owners had good control over their animals this week. I stopped briefly every mile as usual to wipe the mud from my Garmin and check my pace. I also took the opportunity to take on water from my camelback at this point.
The first seven miles or so were pretty uneventful but I did begin to get a few comments this week - the first of which is the title of this post. The following lap the gentleman in question removed his cap and proclaimed "I take my hat off to you sir!" On about the ninth lap a runner caught up with me and we had a brief chat on the move:
"Marathon?"
"Yes, next year."
"What's the current record?"
"4 hours, 10 minutes and 44 seconds."
"You'll do it easily at that pace."
"I know."
"Good luck!" And off he went.
On my final lap all the football games in the park had finished and the players were making their way home. As I passed a bunch of lads, one asked:
"What lap are you on?"
"Ten"
One of the other lads then colourfully expressed his astonishment!
Finally, after I'd finished and was stretching my calf muscles, leaning against the car with the balls at my feet, a small West Highland Terrier approached. He had a little sniff of my balls (you know, the way dogs do) - seriously though, I mean the basketballs. He walked round them and then cocked his leg! Fortunately his little squirt fell short but the owner was very apologetic.
So, I did ten laps which is 11.26 miles in 1:38:46. That makes an average pace per mile of 8:46. Not bad and still well within world record pace. Just another 15 miles to do.
I may not go out with the balls quite so often for the moment so my blog posts may be a little less frequent. I've decided that the Silverstone Half is not going to be a problem now and the important thing to focus on is getting fit enough to finish the Brighton Marathon in under 3:15 thus guaranteeing me entry to London 2017 for the record attempt. I've also got the Bramley 20 to run in three weeks.
Oh, and I lost a ball once today, damn it!
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| It wasn't immediately obvious what my time was! |
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