#RMRChallenge Run Report 5-1-19 Penrith parkrun #loveparkrun

As we all know when you have an annual challenge like the RMR Challenge, if you don't start as you mean to go on and get the miles or events under your belt early doors its easy to get behind and fail... With that in mind I realised that I could manage to do parkrun number 3/10 this weekend at Penrith whilst en route to my son's cross country. This did entail leaving at 8 o'clock in the morning which caused a few issues:

1. I hadn't preprogrammed the sat nav before leaving the house which meant
2. My 12 year old had to programme the sat nav and as he wasn't very awake and I couldn't look we put in the postcode and not the venue which meant
3. We were taken to a housing estate in the middle of Penrith and not to the football club which meant
4. I had to park quite a way from the start and had a quick jog across the field to arrive after the briefing had started - but I did make it!

The course is very different from the ones I have done before. It is 2 laps of all the sports fields and twiddly bits at Penrith FC. The whole route is on pretty well maintained paths or in the car park:

Having run the first little stretch with Ron (the Run Director from Fell Foot - a nice surprise) I realised I had run my first kilometre under 7 minutes which is a bit too fast for me at the minute! So I slipped back into my intervals mode. Not having any hills and not knowing the course made it hard to decide where to do this, but there where some obvious turns that I used:

Despite being a tourist I found people to chat to as I trotted round. That is one of the joys of parkrun a friendly community with volunteer marshals who encourage you whatever your pace! There was even a volunteer photographer to keep us on our toes:

There was no worry about getting lost as the route was well signposted:

I soon warmed up enough to lose a layer and then had the fun of trying to keep it tied round my waist:

The second lap did seem to be an awful lot longer than the first! I think being able to see where you have to run to is not always good psychologically:

I have to say I think I looked very relieved when I realised it was nearly all over:

In for a sprint finish thanks to encouragement from Ron. Then a dash back to my car as I left my son with the car keys and my barcode attached.... luckily there were still people finishing when I made it back to be scanned. My fastest 5 km for a while and fastest parkrun for 2019 (OK I know I've only done 3!):

A well deserved coffee and mince pie with Ron rounded off a good start to the day:

Then discovering that the cross country was right next door made a stress free move to that - except for discovering my son had got his road running shoes but not his fell shoes for his race - oops!