parkrun freedom #16 (19:22)

Another very pleasing freedom parkrun today.

It was a very cool, crisp lunchtime in War Memorial Park in Coventry today. I met my brother Andy at the park entrance and we did a nice gentle warm-up lap of the park perimeter, discussing our target for the impending freedom run and the parkrun on Saturday. Andy has his sights firmly set on a new PB at the weekend. With him having 2 PBs already this month, a third would be amazing. And I hadn't run for 5 days, so we were both more than happy to put a lot of effort into this run. We agreed on a primary target of under the 19:48 from our best freedom run last week and an ultimate goal of sub-19:30. This would be Andy's best parkrun of freedom run time, so a tough target.

We set off very quickly, reaching various positions around the first lap in pretty decent times, only a handful of seconds off my best for at least the first half lap. It was probably about this time that Andy started to blow a bit. By the end of the first lap Andy was saying that he was at his limit. At 9:42 it was one of the fastest first laps he has done. I have to say I felt fine. Its seems such a fine line between fine and shattered for me, as 20 seconds quicker and I too would have been near my limit.

We noticeably slowed during the first half of the 2nd lap, but with about 2 and a half minutes of running time to go and our likely finish time slowly drifting upwards ,Andy confessed that he was done and had to slow. He told me to go on and seeing that he was completely gone and feeling fine myself I picked up the pace. That certainly helped my finish time as I opened up a 28 second gap on Andy by the end, finishing in 19:22 with Andy at 19:50. Those being my 4th best and Andy's 2nd best freedom times.

At only 23 seconds outside my best freedom run, and 8 seconds inside our target, I was very pleased. I am certain that the way I was feeling I am well set to take a chunk off my freedom PB the next time I give it a good go. But the fact remains that I wouldn't be able to get near my parkrun PB on a freedom run. That is just too much to ask without others there to drag me on.

I had a look at the list of the last 100 nationwide freedom runs and found that I have recorded 3 of the last 15 freedom runs. Its sad but I also found that I have 10 of the last 100. Perhaps I am a little bit too keen!