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My quest to get fit again continues and after last week's 10K, I managed to take 61 seconds off this year's Park Run PB and an almost respectable 27 minutes 47 seconds.
I realised after last week's run that my times were more impressive as most of my previous strong runs have happened when I am at the peak of my fitness (though it's a peak in the sense of when Homer is climbing that mountain and realises the peak he has reached is well below the actual peak of the whole thing). Although I am slowly losing weight I am something like 10kg heavier than I was when I set my middle-aged 5K PB of just under 25 minutes. If I'd had to carry a 10kg weight all the way round that time then I doubt I'd have been as fast.
Anyway I am running Park Run 8 minutes faster than I was 2 months ago and any mathematician will tell you that that means I will be sub 20 minutes by January and running the whole thing in 2 minutes come the summer. And then going so fast that I am travelling backwards in time by the end of 2026 (which of course, I will never be able to reach, as I'll be heading in the other direction). There's hope out there for lots of knackered people approaching their sixties. There's life in us old dogs yet. And if not, then running 5k might finish you off and at least that will mean your troubles are over.
As I kept up the roughly 5min33 per km pace I wondered to myself if it would be possible for me to get that down to the necessary 5min per km to get close to my personal best. If someone was holding my family at gunpoint and told me that they would kill the all unless I could beat my Park Run personal best. I wasn't sure why anyone would raise the stakes that high, or even be bothered at how fast I was running or why I'd put my kids' lives on the line in this imaginary scenario rather than my own.
Though if it was just me that was going to die I might not think it was worth putting myself through the pain, whereas I would definitely try my best if my family was in danger. So the imaginary Park Run motivating kidnappers had chosen wisely.
I have a running app that lets me know my pace and when I am too slow (or too fast) and I do push myself a bit harder when I am going too slow (I don't always slow down if I am going too fast - doesn't the app realise I am putting time in the bank - stop chastising me for being too good). Maybe I could take 36 seconds off each of the five kms....
Thank God the insane potential murderers weren't asking me to do a lifetime PB. I reckon I was doing 5km in under 20 minutes when I was 18. They had set a target that would stretch me to my limits, but was at least feasible. These imaginary evil psychopaths were good.
I then remembered that no one had actually made this threat and so I could concentrate on trying to stay on pace for a sub 28 minute run. I am not sure I could have done it in under 25 if lives depended on it. Though I liked the image of starting to sprint and shouting at people to get out of my way. Would adrenaline get me through? Or would I have to risk taking the short cut path that cuts off about a kilometer (which you can take twice) and hope the kidnappers were too busy keeping an eye on my kids (who can be a handful) and wouldn't be watching me and were just planning to check the results on the web page (I guess I could also explain what was going on to one of the volunteers and ask them to cheat the results, but those guys are pretty strict and if they start entering false times just to save the lives of a couple of kids then where will it end?)
Why were the kidnappers doing this? Were they just hoping to motivate me? Would they be happy if I hit their arbitrary target? Would they feel slightly sickened if I failed, but carry out the executions nonetheless? Would I ever do Park Run again if the worst happened? Probably not the next week. Would it teach me a valuable lesson that Park Run isn't about beating targets, but just having fun exercising?
You think about some weird stuff when running. It's where I get most of my crazy ideas.
Is there a movie starring Keanu Reeves in this?
