🏃 Andover Parkrun [11th, 21:47 New PB] | 176 days until my first Marathon! | #runforsteem

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Here's my weekly entry with a 21:46 5km-effort at Andover Parkrun that I ran this morning. I went on a Uni Sports Tour to Croatia last week, and if any of you are accustomed to those it did involve a large amount of drinking and I've definitely taken a hit from it. It will probably be another week or two of normal running until I regain the fitness level that I had before I went, which is a little bit disappointing but nothing that I didn't sign up for. I ran the fastest 5km time that I have logged so far at an average pace of 4:18/km (although I definitely have run faster, they've been with pauses around a City/Village route riddled with disruptions). Official time from Parkrun was 21:47, but I definitely finished with a time of around 21:44/45 but a few seconds doesn't annoy me too much.

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I started off quite fast as I really wanted to set a new PB and a time of around 21:45, and I wanted to make sure that none of the slower runners/walkers blocked me at the start (which happened at my last Parkrun and probably lost me 10 seconds or so). The first split I ran in 3:56/km and the second in 4:06/km, and about the halfway stage I think I was in around 5th or 6th (which I knew I couldn't keep up, so I didn't try to stick to the heels of anyone who passed me and ran my own race). The second half of the Parkrun was absolute torture for me, I just had nothing left to give and even keeping to a pace of 4:30/km was a massive effort; my Heart Rate even nudged into the 200s in the last km, so I know I really put my body through its paces today.

Definitely didn't help that it was still really quite muddy and running whilst absolutely knackered on slippy mud isn't fun at all. In perfect conditions, I can expect a time (probably) of about a minute quicker with the same level of effort, I probably need to upgrade my shoes as well to something a bit lighter. I can see myself being able to run sub-20:00 5kms in the Summer if I keep running at the same rate I am, and the conditions get better.

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Check out my Strava here;
https://www.strava.com/activities/1507218152

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