Chelmsford Parkrun and even pacing

Colchester Parkrun was cancelled today because of the carnival, so I took the train to Chelmsford to run theirs - the park is flat, so I was hoping for another pb, the trifecta 3 in 3 weeks, but after half a bottle of wine and a buttery risotto last night, I had the excuses lined up, just in case.

I wore the Adidas boost to give me a turn of speed, but when I did my warm up, I felt sluggish, and wasn't that confident. I did some strides, but even then my legs felt heavy and still tight from last week- only 6 days after my 10k pb in the heat. I was aiming for 22:40, according to my pace calc app, that's a 7:17mm pace, so I programmed my virtual pacer in the garmin on tht pace.

I wonder if the slowness helped I certainly didn't set off too fast and by half a mile in, I was finally up to pace.. This Parkrun was as advertised- flat, which made the fact I was slightly off pace at half way a bit annoying. Then there were a few sections on grass that made it a bit tougher. I followed @mia79gbr's advice, and kept asking myself if I could give any more. The nice thing about a Parkrun, is that it doesn't last much longer than 20 minutes,so the answer to that question is almost always yes. In the last km I was just chasing the people ahead of me, trying to pick them off.

The Chelmsford lot are fast! The clubs around there must be competitive, whenever ladies from Springfield Striders come to Colchester Parkrun, they seem to always finish in the top 3.

Whereas I was 40th in Colchester 2 weeks ago, today I was 67th despite being over 30 seconds faster!

And I'm impressed with my even splits:

Mile 1: 7:21
Mile 2: 7:21
Mile 3: 7:17
Last 0.09: 6:11

Average pace 7:18. So 8 seconds per mile improvement in 2 weeks for a time of 22:33

So, what to do for the next few weeks- 3 pbs in 3 weeks is quite exciting. I want to try out my newfound speed on a half marathon, I think I'll do Ipswich, and so I'm going to get together a training plan tomorrow and get back on it.

Also, with my recent lack of focus, I'm beginning to fall behind on my 1000 miles in 2013 goal, so long runs will be coming back :)

Stats:

Congratulations on completing your 4th parkrun and your 1st at Chelmsford Central today. You finished in 67th place and were the 13th lady out of a field of 213 parkrunners and you came 5th in your age category SW25-29. Take a look at this week's full set of results on our website. As this is your first run at this event we have set your PB.