The Flying Doctor Visits Texas

PARKRUN WOODBANK PARK STOCKPORT

I continued with my quest to sample all the Parkruns in my local area. This one was only about 5 miles from where I live. I drove there and warmed up 31 minutes in order to get a few extra miles in the bag. I found this course fairly difficult as after the flat of Woodbank Park there are two excursions in to Vernon Park, two steep downs followed by two steep climbs. On the second lap I was catching runner in black with “100″ (Parkruns) on the back of his vest. I headed him with about 500m to go and was still ahead as we turned towards the running track. Suddenly someone else shot past, Stockport Harrier, Michael Thirsk.  “100″ who was Peter Samuelson, Spectrum Striders, overtook me as well. My heart was hammering and telling me to back off, which I did. My time 27:07, knock off 2 seconds to cross the start line equals 27:05. I was 67th out of 116, and first O/70. I ran back to my car and was home before 10:00.

Tuesday I flew with Graham Richards and Jackie Turnbull to Austin, Texas to attend an exhibition: The Running Event 2011, staying at the Omni Downtown Hotel. I had run in the morning in Hyde so got straight to bed after a long and diverted flight. In the morning I ran down to the Town Lake, which is more like a river, and did an out and back, encountering dozens of runners for a 4.5 miler. I had trained hard for a 5 K associated with the show, early Friday morning. Wednesday evening we walked to the opening of the show and almost there I tripped on a curb and fell forward banging my knee. I seemed to be fine. The next morning I enjoyed a “wander run“ to the east of the city. No obvious problem with my knee.

THE INDIE 5K AUSTIN, TEXAS

Friday morning we competitors were bussed out to Zilker Park for the race. It was early and still dark. As dawn arrived I warmed up. What a wonderful park this would be for training with trails along both sides of a river. It was cold so I ran in tights. I did not feel that good on this hilly course but did my best and clocked 25:59 after a pretty disastrous first mile in 8:50. My left knee had not troubled me. The winner, Benson Cheruiyot, NV Century, ran 15:03. The first woman, Megan Nedio, Karhu NA, 17:23.

I was 279th out of 360.

I flew home that afternoon. The week ended with 31 miles