BCTTT Forum

The advantage of parkrun is that it is a consistent course, so great for benchmarking. And unless you are troubling the 16 minute mark, there will be people who are faster than you, and just as keen not to be beaten. It's as much a race as anything else, despite the branding Or, rather, it's a race for those that want it to be.

I use parkrun for benchmarks/fitness tests. The only issue I have is that the courses aren't very flat. The nearest fastest one means a trek over to Huddersfield (a 20 minute run there is "slower" than a 20:45 run at Halifax, and a 20:30 run at Bradford).

My parkruns ranked in order of how good they are:

1. Halifax parkrun 00:20:45
2. Bradford parkrun 00:20:42
3. Huddersfield parkrun 00:20:00
4. Woodhouse Moor parkrun 00:19:57

Never raced/been fit at these two
Horton Park parkrun 00:24:07
Skipton parkrun 00:28:38

I think the Halifax one is by far the best, would have been 20:30 at Bradford, and 19:40-45 at huddersfield/Woodhouse.

Ok I am persuaded

Nearest one to me is Corby,I have done it maybe 10 times in the last 3 yrs or so. It is quite a hilly one and a lot of grass so slower in winter. My best there I think is 20.45 done this summer, but best 5k as part of HM is 20.36.

There is a flat one not too far from me at Rutland Water, so will have a bash at that. I think VO2 predicted time is a little unlikely

Ok, so not as planned.
Week 8, 15.4k 1hr 32mins. I won't bother with the rest of the stats!

I had a rest day on Monday, so two on the trot. Plan had been steady week and park run pb attempt Saturday. Weds did hill repeats, not as many as last week, but faster. Everything felt fine until later at night and felt very sharp pain in foot. This lasted next three days so basically took the rest of the week off. Steady 5k this morning and all fine.

sensible.

and you should be flying come Saturday

Jack Hughes wrote:sensible.

and you should be flying come Saturday

Busy week so only done 20k so far. So in effect I have had a two week taper for a park run

So last "race" of the year for me and last In 50-54ag. If this had gone badly I would have had to change the title of this thread to running slower to run slower!

in short, pb. 19.39 for Rutland park run. It's flat and a good surface. Tailed off badly in last 1200m, probably due to pacing wrong , something like 6.09, 6.20, 6.30 and then that last .1m that always throws my "in race" mental calculations!

Overall happy, will be some time before I can hope to break 19!

Garmin shows VO2 max up to 58, so I think it is a little generous with that given the time.

Great work!

Probably puts you in the top 1%-2% of all park runners, let alone the VM50s.

Have you retired again?

6th overall, first VM50 too.

Beat all the VM45s and VM40s too.

Smashed your Corby PB of 20:45 too.... a real improvement... definitely up a couple of levels.