Sunshine at Riverside Parkrun

Race No.61

Steady!

The races are now coming fast and thick. Today, Saturday, it was a return visit to Riverside Parkrun at Chester le Street, on a bright and sunny morning.

So nice was it, that combined with little or no wind, it would have been an ideal day to set a new personal best (pb). This would have meant a sub 21.44 5K time and after last week's 22.01 at the Town Moor, it was definitely on. But, no, I needed to be sensible as I had already ran a tough 10K at Spadeadam on Tuesday and was entered for the Sunderland 10K tomorrow (plus a small matter of the Les Alcorn 10K at Alnwick next Tuesday). Well I did say that the races were coming thick and fast!

So it came to pass that I was sensible and that's probably a first. After a steady start on the first lap, I held back on the second and on the short, third and final lap I actually let the chap in the black tee shirt (pictured above) go without challenge. A finish in 22.28 actually made it a p.b. for me at Riverside but a 21 minute 5K can wait for another day.

At the end I engaged another 'Gadgie' in conversation, as he looked familiar. Turned out it was Elswick's Mark McNally, a superb runner of 69 years. Whenever I compete, if I can even use that term, against Mark I will be a distant finisher. Today was just the same as he finished in 19.59, now that's real finishing.

Now, it's a warm down, lots of water today and a single glas of wine with the meal tonight, for tomorrow I race in my home town, Sunderland.