After a bit of a race against the clock we scraped into the start of the 343rd Richmond parkrun today to a worried looking Oliver who probably thought we’d driven to the wrong park! It was one of those mornings where every traffic light was red and everyone seemed to be trying to keep to a steady 15mph through the centre of Kingston. We arrived at the park at about 8:50 and after some interesting navigation to the car park had a mad dash to where we could see the runners had congregated in the distance. It was one hell of a warm up though and I toyed with starting the watch early to monitor the full 6k we ended up running.
Luckily we made it in the nick of time and joined the fairly large crowd of 339 (including me, Hannah and Ollie) to meander down to the start line in the scenic royal park. After a pre-race strategy chat where I resolved to take it very easy to save myself for a club league race the following day, I threw caution to the wind and shot off like a greased pig.
I was pleased with myself as I looked at my watch as I was running at about 3:40/km and it didn’t feel flat out. 1km in and I was already doing maths that pretty much equated to a world record….well, a PB anyway so I kept it going. After covering the first 2km in 7:38 the sub-20 looked well and truly on, but looking at the profile plot from my watch we had actually been running a gradual down-hill which explains why trying to keep the pace going for the third kilometre made me feel like I was going to keel over. As well as that very gradual decline being almost imperceptible, the gradual incline over the last 2km was, for the most part, unnoticeable other than the fact that my pace just got worse and worse. I finally clocked in at 20:37 which is actually a time I am happy with, but it was quite hard work for the last 2 or 3km.
In terms of difficulty I would put this almost exactly level with Hove, because I think now I know the course profile I could pace myself a lot more consistently and achieve a very similar time to Hove. Other factors for this comparison: Richmond doesn’t have any big hills like Hove does despite a similar total incline, but in some ways that hampers you because you never really notice you are going up or down hill; Richmond has a mixed terrain including road, trail and grass which for me I find trickier than a full on road route; Richmond finishes slightly up-hill whereas Hove finishes on a nice decline; Richmond is only one lap which gets rid of any repetition.
The field seemed reasonably well mixed and included some very decent runners. They seemed pretty friendly too, especially at the end everyone seemed very jolly but as we arrived so late I never got the chance to absorb the ‘vibe’ of this one. The setting was nice, running around a park that was largely undisturbed by anyone else. A few other runners scattered about doing their own thing but the paths were all plenty wide enough for everybody. There was no course congestion at any point, helped by the fact it was only one big lap.
Definitely a course with some PB potential and in a nicer setting than Hove.
Pictured: Me, Hannah and Oliver. 'Selfie' courtesy of Ollie!
