It’s a Saturday, so of course, today’s run was Parkrun: Rutland Water Parkrun.
I’m a big fan of Parkrun, I love the whole ethos of it. The free timed run, the community feel, the fact that so many fabulous volunteers get out there every week to ensure it happens. In fact, I’ve even put my name down to a bit of marshalling.
Recently, Parkrun has been about plodding around at a steady pace; today was very different.
A challenge had been thrown down: Mr Dave Marples was in town. I was now involved in the biggest head-to-head in recent history. Bigger than David and Goliath. Bigger than St George and the dragon. Bigger even than May and Corbyn.
Dave’s underhand tactics were clear from the off. He arrives 1 minute before the off, in an attempt to rattle me. He was no doubt warming up and stretching out of sight, or more likely probably popping banned high performance pills.
At halfway we were still neck and neck, a pretty good sub 7.45min/mile pace, but things were starting to hurt. Turning into a head wind didn’t help, cue Dave’s sneaky drafting tactic. Even my constant weaving couldn’t shake him off my tail. He was following closer than a fat kid following an ice cream van. Like a fart in a Russian space station, I couldn’t escape his clutches.
A breathless few words between us with 500 metres to go proved to be pivotal, it went something like this:
Me: Not sure I can up the pace.
Dave: Me neither.
My tactics had worked. It had lulled him into a false sense of security. I pounced on Dave’s momentary lapse of concentration. I was gone. Like a rat up a drainpipe.
Powering the last 100m meant I came away with a MASSIVE 6 second victory. It was hard work, very hard work, I even managed to avoid throwing up over the timekeeper on the line. Result.
Congratulations to Mr Dave Marples on a good time. Rematch is going to be big.
Total Juneathon mileage: 10.6
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