5k Run

My Saturday cardio is usually a 5k run in the park, often with my wife Jenny, and whenever possible one of the hundreds of runs organised by parkrun UK.

If its a parkrun, its always a Saturday and always starts at 09:00 in England (Scottish ones start at 09:30).

This is a late start for morning training for me, which is usually under way an hour or two before this.  But I still stick to the rule of nothing eaten before the morning training (except water and a couple of black coffees), and eat nothing during the first two hours awake.

Parkrun is a brilliant initiative, totally free to enter and the organisers track your performance automatically over the many runs and send you email updates.  The runs take place at hundreds of locations around the UK (plus a few overseas), and if you are travelling away for a weekend, just see if there is a parkrun near where you are visiting on the Saturday morning – if so, just turn up and do the run; it will still be automatically recorded by the organisers provided you’ve taken your registration barcode.

I hope you will try a parkrun near you, and hopefully become a regular.  All the details are on www.parkrun.org.uk  On that page, you’ll be able to see how to register (which you have to do once only), and how the parkrun UK team keep records of your performance.

If you decide to register, and you are not already a member of another running club, please select Fitness Over Fifty as your club; I’ll then be able to track how well all you quintastics are progressing with the run.

The parkrun that Jenny and I do most Saturdays is the one in Black Park, near Slough.  If you try that one, and you spot me there, come and say hi and I’ll happily buy you a coffee after the run.

In case you are wondering, I normally take around 26 to 28 minutes for the run, with my personal best being 24min 20sec. This puts me about half way down the field of runners at Black Park.  I’m trying to get a few more starting with 24 or 25 min during the next few months.  I’ve now done around 200 parkruns, and looking forward to getting the 250, which comes complete with a free running top to join the 100 and 50 run ones already in use!