Can breaking a parkrun course PB by 4 minutes 28 seconds be a disappointment? If the question was should rather than can, then the answer would probably be no. Even the best case scenario today would still have been well outside my overall parkrun PB, and massively improving my 5k times isn’t really that relevant given my next event is a Marathon. Whilst such improvements would obviously be nice, regular and consistent fast 5k runs are all you really need to improve your Marathon time. You are never going to do a 5k effort in a Marathon, and fast 5k runs are just about getting your body used to running faster paces, so that when you run your Marathon pace, it should feel very easy until at least into the second half.
But to revisit the original question, today definitely felt like a disappointment. Certainly not a crushing disappointment, but equally a run which didn’t go to plan. That however gives an opportunity to assess why things didn’t go to plan, and today it was the accumulation of a few small things.
Firstly, the previous three days were definitely a factor. Wednesday and Thursday were consecutive days of hard efforts. That isn’t normally how you should structure a training week, though the fact that the Wednesday was on the bike and Thursday was a run did mitigate that slightly since slightly different muscle groups were being worked. Last night was spent down the pub. As I was driving I didn’t have to worry about my stomach this morning, but it still meant that I did nothing in terms of exercise last night. That might sound ideal in terms of being well rested, but generally I run better if I’ve done a light run or at least some yoga the day before. A complete rest day can leave the legs feeling sluggish, which is far from ideal going into a 5k.
This morning I also had to drop my car in for its MOT. Thankfully that was only about a mile away from the Memorial Park, which is the minimum distance I would want to do for my warm up. However, I was concerned how long it would take to drop the car off and knew it would be better to be too early than too late, so ended up arriving at the start at 08:30. On a warmer morning that would have been fine, but given how chilly it was and the fact that none of the indoor spaces in the park were open at that time, I had to keep moving. The net result was that my warm up wasn’t quite structured the same as it usually would be, and I was constantly worried about either over doing it or under doing it.
Eventually it was time to line up for the start. Coventry is one of the parkrun where they try to guide you in terms of where to stand based on likely finish time, and that seemed simple for me today. The first marker was for sub 20 minutes and that was my goal, so I stood at the back of that section. There were only about 6 people in front of me though, which I found surprising since there are usually plenty of sub 20 finishers at Coventry. Indeed, today there would be 19 of them, so why so few of them seemed willing to place themselves in the correct place on the start line is a bit of a mystery.
A mystery which I dealt with badly it turned out. Lots of people shot past me before the first corner. A few people overtaking you is normal, but for that many to overtake me, I thought I must have set out too slowly, especially given how few runners seemed to fancy their chances of going sub 20 based on their start line placement. It felt fast, but I felt like I had to up my pace. I should have trusted my feelings, because when I had an opportunity to check my watch, it showed that I was going quite a bit faster than I’d planned to set out.
Had this happened at Warwick Racecourse, I probably would have been able to adjust my pace effectively. However, I haven’t run at the Memorial Park for more than a year and I had forgotten how deceptively tough the course can be. The elevation gain is actually more than Leamington parkrun, albeit whilst the elevation gain at Leamington all comes within the 2nd mile, at Coventry there are small but significant undulations throughout.
Having gone through the first kilometre in 3:56, I was a little shocked to see my next split come through as 4:14. I was therefore very much against it to try to go sub 20. I made a conscious effort to lift my pace and try to reduce the deficit – whenever your target is sub 20, you can very easily calculate how far up or down you are on your target. On a good day your final kilometre will be your fastest, but I couldn’t leave too much to do. My next split was 4:05, so I tried to use the next downhill as an opportunity to work up through the gears.
Unfortunately I didn’t have any more left. I felt laboured going up the next uphill, and any flow that I’d had was gone. The next split was 4:08, which completely removed any prospect of sub 20. I tried to motivate myself to at least move up a few positions, but on the two lap course, I now found myself lapping people too, reducing the space available for an actual overtake. Whether I had the legs to do so I’m not sure, but in truth I didn’t really try. I was content just to maintain my position and crossed the line in 20:36.
20:36 is faster than I managed in Leamington, though I still feel like Leamington is the tougher course due to the steepness of the hill. It was however slower than the 20:23 I did at my most recent Warwick Racecourse parkrun. Warwick probably is easier than Cov, but with a few weeks of training behind me I’d hoped to go faster. The fact I didn’t was disappointing, but I don’t think it will take big changes to get to where I want to be. Next week I’m returning to Warwick Racecourse, so I will get the opportunity to put that theory to the test.