Buckingham Parkrun Report by Mark Tyrrell
59:59 slowest 3rd place parkrun ever!!
After a few years of inconsistency due to injuries 2020 has been planned for sensible training and planned races, with 2 maybe 3 big Ironman and half Ironman races planned injury is something I wanted to steer clear of!
So eynsham rr decided to do a fast parkrun January, I decided to pick one, and one weekend and see where my fitness is. Buckingham was chosen and the date was set in the diary so whatever the weather and whatever the conditions I was racing that day!! The day came and after lots of rain, flooding had cancelled most park runs in Oxfordshire but thankfully Buckingham was still on. We parked and ran to the start to do a warm up and check the route.
We were notified by the organisers that the course had been changed due to flooding, and this meant an out and back including 3 laps around a small path in the park, So off we went, the 2 in front who I knew were in a different league to me, so I let them go and settled into a steady pace, we hit the first loop of the course all was fine, 2nd Lap was very busy, 3rd lap was spent mostly running on the muddy grass as the path was pretty much blocked, we peeled off to run back to the finish and I looked at my watch thinking surely that’s not going to be the full distance, and it wasnt I crossed the line in 16:12, 4.554km, well that’s a parkrun pb I will never beat!! but knowing parkrun distances are very random thought it would just stand! So we warmed down with a local runner who took us round the usual course to find no flooding and no ice so wondered why they changed the course!! Drove home happy with how I ran and optimistic that my fitness was returning, I logged in to parkrun results to find they had mis-calculated the course and decided to give the whole field 59:59 to make it fair!! Although my average parkrun time took a dive I did get a bottle of wine!! My next planned race was Newbury racecourse 10k (welcome storm ciara) and then Wokingham half, so whoever is doing that be warned I think we have snow on the way!!
I can’t report on anyone else but well done to all who ran a parkrun.
