I must have been keen today
By Neil_D
By Neil_D
We are just a few days off the calendar winter and although it is a cissy winter compared to you in the northern states of the US and Canada it's kind of relative. After having summers where the temperature can range up to 45C a morning of 11C is pretty chilly.
Last week I heard news of a Parkrun starting at West Beach a suburb about 5km from where I am. I decided I should check it out.
In winter I am not in any great urge to get up early and run, I like the weak suns rays to elevate the concrete temperature to just a nice level to keep my feet happy.
This run was at 8am so not much warming going on there. The air temp was 11C but the ground would have been colder.
As this was only a test run for the organisers they were not recording times. Around 20 people turned up to run the 5km distance. I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a slower social run or a belt it out run. This one turned out to be the latter. So, I set off a brisk pace, usually I like to start slow to warm up then go faster but I set off faster from the start. The first km was nice concrete, cold but nice. Then onto the river linear park and old rougher bitumen with lots of tree debris around. Running on that with cold feet always makes my feet feel sore. The rough surface was only a short 500m then back to nice fresh smooth bitumen. The first of the 5k runner were passing me on the way back when I was about 400m from the halfway point. One jester cam out with the line "watch out for the syringes" yeah ok I'll keep an eye out.
I hit the halfway then was on the way back to the finish. It was a good run, I never time myself but I would estimate around 25 minutes. I saw the jester at the finish and told him I would have been faster but I had to stop 3 times to remove syringes from my heel along the way.
I got back home at 9am then had some breakfast before heading out to the city centre to meet up with fellow barefoot runner David.
We ran along the River Torrens lake, past the Adelaide zoo then around the sports fields, back onto the other side of the river and finished up at the weir where we began our run. Distance covered 6km.
It was a bit warmer under foot but the cold always makes my feet feel more sensitive.
We warmed up in a local cafe in a converted railway station a short drive up the road.
We now have 3 winter running meets before we are back into the lighter evenings and warming weather.
Neil
