This month’s round up.
So far this month has flown by with some great races and so not so great races. At the start of the month I had my second home park run in Haylodge Park. If you haven’t run the race route it can only be described as lumpy. The start is fairly straight forward with a gradual decent down to the bottom corner of the park with a sharp left hand turn following the river. After passing the park bridge the course begins to get lumpy with a gradual gradient back up to the rugby gym. Once passing this you have three laps to go of the course but not before you take on the main park hill which is not anything steep but after a few laps it becomes a rather long stride up it.
For my first attempt I had underestimated how lumpy the course is and had previously set off at 17 minute 5k pacing. However, this time around I was much more prepared and sensible about my pacing. After taking the 1stposition after only 300 yards I managed to win the park run in a time of 18:02 which was not be any means my quickest time but none the less a wins a win. I would certainly recommend to anyone in the local area who is wanting a more challenging course rather than a flat 5k.
My second race of the month was one of the final Run and Become 2 milers in the meadows in Edinburgh. I have loved doing these races for the past few years and would certainly recommend them to anyone who is looking to increase their racing and their speed work. The races are on a Wednesday night throughout the summer at 7pm and a complete new field seems to turn up every week with a mixture of abilities, ages and goals.
This was a muggy night and my legs were pretty shattered from picking up the mileage over the last few weeks however, I still managed to put out an ok 2-mile time of 11 mins 40 seconds. Felt a bit knackered and know I can run a lot better but glad I went and raced a shorter race.
My most recent race was the mile at the Leithen Games track. I haven’t really done a race on the track for over a year so wasn’t expecting much however, I ran a sub 5-minute mile which was my aim from the start of the season. I ran a 4:50 mile dead and managed to get a little bit of prize money which made the achievement that little sweeter.
Hopefully I should be back to being able to write my blog on a weekly basis again but with university coming back up it looks like its going to be really busy again.
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