Long Run - 21km (including Yarborough Parkrun - 25:19 [PB])

dannewton just finished a 21.63km run, that lasted for 133 minutes.
This run helped dannewton burn 1685.0 calories.

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Description from Strava:

So it is Saturday, which means 'long run' day... but today it also means a long overdue 'parkrun' day. And as a change in pace, I have managed to go to a different parkrun compared the usual one at Boultham Park.

It is a little bit further afield, so whereas Boultham Park Parkrun is 4km away from where I live, Yarborough is 8km away, and as I don't drive that means I have to run there and back... I suppose its just a nice long warmup/cooldown eh?!

The event starts at 9:00 and so to make sure I could run the 8km and still get there in time for the start, I had to make sure I was up nice and early, to give myself time to get there (and I didn't want to be running late, which would force me to go to fast too soon).

And so at roughly 7:56am, I set off into the morning sunshine...

It was a beautiful day out here, cool and fresh at just 13C, but nice and bright, with clear blue skies.

The park run takes place at Yarborough Leisure centre, which is at the top of town. When I was putting together a route map to get there, I tried to make it as straight and direct as possible. I head out of the village and down into Lincoln. I then run all the way up the High Street

Really quiet running past all the shops, but then I guess it was still only 8:30 at this point, still waiting for many of them to open.

After a short while, it was time to take a left and head towards West Parade, and then make my way up Yarborough Hill

with 60+ metres of elavation, Yarborough hill is no joke! Probably not the best in terms of getting ready for a hard 5km effort, but nothing I could do about that!

At the top of the hill I took a left at the junction, and then took a right to head down Breedon Drive...

and then with a short run through a quiet housing estate...

I had arrived.

I have actually run here before, many, many years ago*... there was a 5km race organized by a local running club - Lincoln Wellington AC. It was part of a series of 4 races over the summer. I only ran one of these races as I can remember getting injured 3 weeks later and didn't run at all for the rest of the year, but it was also the site of my ultimate 5km PB of 23:01... and I've never managed to get close to that time since.

*I've just checked my records, I ran here way back on 26th May 2005... thats 19 feckin' years ago!

I'm not entirely sure what the course was for that, but I do know that it is different to this parkrun version, shown below

Essentially, the green marker is the start, the red is the finish, and we run 3 laps around the course (although there is a 2nd small loop on the first lap)...sounds confusing, but it was easy to follow on the day

The path all the way round was this nice wide and mostly flat tarmac path, much better than the route at Boultham Park which is narrow and twisty

Getting ready to start

After a very short briefing, we got under way sharp at 9am

This was the only picture I took during the run. To be fair, the course wasn't overly exciting, running 3 and a bit laps around the edge of a field, and in this respect Boultham Park is much more interesting with its small lake, and forested sections.

I also didn't take pictures as I was pushing quite hard. I aimed for a 5 minute per km pace right from the start, and tried to hold that steady as long as I could. My watch shows an estimate of pace, and I noticed my pace kept drifting down to 5:10 and 5:15. I did keep correcting it back to 5:00 whenever I noticed it.

On the 3rd and final lap I began to push harder, moving to 4:45 then to 4:30, and then there was a reasonably strong sprint finish to the line

the graph below shows the whole run, including the 5km 'race' in the middle section (and shows the sprint finish too!)

58th Place out of 173 total runners

The race results are sent out in a couple of hours, once everyone has finished, and the data has been checked.

It was time for me to head back home, and as I'd pushed quite hard, I made sure to keep a relaxed pace to help me cool down and recover.

The route home was identical to route I took to get here this morning:

Breedon Drive

Lincoln High Street (looking a little busier now)

Up the hill into Bracebridge Heath

When I arrived home, I recieved a very nicely timed email with my stats from todays parkrun.

I was pleased to see a new Parkrun PB of 25:19... it takes over 3 minutes of my previous PB, although thats not really surprising considering its been a whole year since my last one, and I rarely push this hard for these

And as location, I think I prefer it to the other place, it might seem a more boring course, but I'm going to find it easier to push harder on this one. I also appreciate the longer distance to get there so I can make the whole run into a proper 'long run'.

The only negative of that is the hills required to get here (as shown below) I guess I'm just gonna have to get used to it!

The parkrun is cancelled here at Yarborough next week, so I've got 2 options: either return back to Boultham Park, or head out to the other new parkrun location at Doddington Hall. That is even further away from home at 12km each way, but that just means a nicer, longer run!

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If you would like to check out this activity on strava you can see it here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/12287309558

About the Athlete: Living in the UK, I am an intermittent Runner, but always striving for more consistency. When I'm not training I can be found photographing insects or listening to really loud angry music (which is the best type of music obviously!)

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