As Colin, Geoff and I sheltered from the pouring rain by the lake in Battersea Park I was wondering whether I’d made a bit of a mistake suggesting we meet to run the kangaroo hop 5k on what I thought would be a dry, sunny evening. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Turned out it was actually one of my better ideas and as Harriers assembled from their varying days the rain stopped and it gave way to a slightly sticky evening.
Due to the large number of entrants (making use of the bargain £7 entry fee) there was a 20 second early start for those going sub 18. Obviously not for most of us, but a slightly odd sounding set up worked smoothly. It also gave Gareth the opportunity to mix it with the big boys and completely obliterate his pb.
As for the rest of us, Sarah encouraged a few of us to get nearer the front, which gave us a great starting position, and I told Amelie in my best teacher voice that she should run about 19.30.
Swept along by the joy of racing, lots of my friends about, and wanting to not get any colder or wetter, I set off a bit fast 🙄, but felt good and other than steadying round the corners and worrying that I was indeed in front of Amelie for over half a km kept trying not to slow down too much.
2 and a bit laps later we were all done, I’d gone way under 20, followed closely by Sarah, giving me the perfect encouragement just before the end, then in quick succession there were lots of us, joining Gareth and Amelie who were already done.
Geoff T took another teeny slice off his 5k record with a new pb, I took a slightly larger slice off mine with a road pb, Stella Richardson completely blitzed her record, plus loads of pbs and age pbs (I don’t care if some were first 5k road runs, still a pb in my world) for Gareth, Amelie, Sarah, Kannan, and Colin, alongside sterling performances from Mark, Geoff H, Martin and Gemma.
Some went home to bask in their glory, some of us carried on to the (expertly recommended) pub to relive our experience, watch the football through the window and eat partially defrosted chocolate raspberries before getting the train home.
We can’t do the next one as it’s sold out, but hope to return next year and we’ll look out for other fun stuff that we can go and do.
I’ve realised this is as long as Eren’s report and he ran over 100 miles compared to our 3.12.
Here are the scores on the doors:
95 Gareth H 17.41
188 Amelie K 19.28
212 Ali F 19.47 1st v50
213 Sarah C 19.47
232 Geoff T 20.18
260 Mark G 21.01
268 Kannan M 21.12
278 Martin S 21.36
284 Colin R 21.46
303 Geoff H 22.37
338 Stella R 25.52 3rd v60
358 Gemma S 28.12
Well done everyone
Happy running,
Ali