Pontefract parkrun #160
18th May 2019
The Full Ponty is probably the most difficult of the parkrun challenges to complete from many places in the UK because two are in Wales and one in Yorkshire. Unperturbed by this, I took a day off work on Friday 17th May 2019 to travel up to Pontefract with Alex who was going to Leeds for a meeting in the afternoon. Pontefract would be the first of the three we'd complete.
The hotel was about a 20 minute drive from Pontefract racecourse where the parkrun is located, not far considering where we've been going recently. Plan for today, was to run it all. The last time I ran an entire parkrun was 26-Jan-2019 at Upton House. I think I did run all of Frimley on 02-Feb-2019 but it was in the snow so it wasn't very easy and I'm not counting it. The following day was the 8 mile run in the snow that killed my knee. Neither of us had slept well, so we said we would run it all but not flat out. Not that I really know what flat out is anymore for 3 miles. We did just that, although it felt harder than it should have felt. I finished in 28:01, Alex a second ahead, in position 123 out of 321. Absolutely chuffed with this. I had been so worried that I'd completely lose all my speed and would find even a 32 min 5k hard, so to do a 28 min was amazing. The course was Yorkshire flat, but tarmac pretty much all the way round and the conditions were perfect. I had no knee pain at all, and my foot is ok for 3 miles so everything held together.
I had taped my knee up, so the next step will be to run without the tape. And then break in the orthotics so I can start to learn to run in them. That is going to be hard. One week at a time.
The hotel was about a 20 minute drive from Pontefract racecourse where the parkrun is located, not far considering where we've been going recently. Plan for today, was to run it all. The last time I ran an entire parkrun was 26-Jan-2019 at Upton House. I think I did run all of Frimley on 02-Feb-2019 but it was in the snow so it wasn't very easy and I'm not counting it. The following day was the 8 mile run in the snow that killed my knee. Neither of us had slept well, so we said we would run it all but not flat out. Not that I really know what flat out is anymore for 3 miles. We did just that, although it felt harder than it should have felt. I finished in 28:01, Alex a second ahead, in position 123 out of 321. Absolutely chuffed with this. I had been so worried that I'd completely lose all my speed and would find even a 32 min 5k hard, so to do a 28 min was amazing. The course was Yorkshire flat, but tarmac pretty much all the way round and the conditions were perfect. I had no knee pain at all, and my foot is ok for 3 miles so everything held together.
I had taped my knee up, so the next step will be to run without the tape. And then break in the orthotics so I can start to learn to run in them. That is going to be hard. One week at a time.