My slowest parkrun of the year, but this time, I had a reason.
Parkrun 12: Singleton Parkrun
Location: Singleton, NSW
Time: 35:49
Position: 75
A day of restarts and a few old friends as I venture back to the place of my very first parkrun, some five-and-a-half years ago, this time with my youngest daughter in tow as she has been begging me to start helping her train for her cross country, coming up in probably a few weeks time.
As such, today’s parkrun was an interval session – 6 lots of 4 minutes run/1 minute walk at her pace, which is always too fast for the first couple. Doubly so today, as it’s her first parkrun in about 6 months.
Hence the slower than usual time.
But I don’t mind, as I have to push her to complete each interval. She’s gone out too fast as expected on the first two reps, which by the third means that she’s starting to tire quickly.
The course is a reasonably flat out and back with a couple of small ‘hills’, as I’ve spoken about before, and we round half way and start the treck back as we finish rep 3.
Rep 4 is where it starts to go downhill for her. She’s tired, lacking fitness for any kind of endurance running, and talking negatively to herself. I start to jog ahead.
By the time I’ve finished rep four she’s a couple of hundred metres behind me and struggling. I pump her up a little so she runs to me to catch up – this break is going to be an extra minute long.
Rep 5 I make a minute shorter half by accident, and half deliberately, so that by the time we’re about to start the sixth rep, she’s in a better place. She completes that rep relatively comfortably (as I suspected she would). I ask if she really needs a break as we’re only a few hundred metres from the end, she says yes, but I compromise to make it only 30 seconds.
We start the final rep, which isn’t really a full rep as it’s only now a couple of hundred metres or so, and round the corner for the finishing straight. I tell her to go for it, and she kicks her legs into high gear. I knew she had more left in the tank and that negative talk was only doing harm, so this extra gear she’s found is hardly a surprise.
She ends up a full 23 seconds ahead of me by the time we both cross the finish line, and already I’m thinking about just how much she will have gained in fitness from this one run. The next time we go out together, in about a fortnight, I know will be much easier. I’m also thinking about what homework to set her so she doesn’t drop that fitness, remaining aware of her football training starting this week.
In the meantime, we go and have breakfast together – smashed avo and a couple of poached eggs on toast for me, banana bread for her. I don’t get to see the kids a lot at the moment due to work commitments so I’m enjoying this time together.
I know that she is a fast runner that has endurance legs in her. Her running form is already excellent. I also know it won’t be long before she’s leaving me in the dust. And to be honest, I can’t wait for that day.