Well I didn’t finish in the top 10 but I thoroughly enjoyed my first Hackney Marshes Parkrun this morning. I went along with my friend Kasia and for some reason I was a bag of nerves. So much so that I got a stitch during the 30 minute walk to the park, not ideal to say the least. But once at the run my nerves evaporated the volunteers were super friendly and I bumped into an old colleague Adele who was also running her first Parkrun.

Again I didn’t have a watch to monitor my pace but used RunKeeper without headphones, so throughout I didn’t have an idea how fast I was running. I knew that I was pushing myself so I guessed my time would be reasonable. I started off really strongly in the lead group and settled down into a nice consistent pace.

But today I just seemed to have one gear, throughout the race about 6 people went past me they obviously nailed the negative splits. Which is something I definitely need to work on. I suppose I am just afraid I will not be able to accelerate when the time comes. Does anyone else worry about this? And if so what is the secret to overcoming it? Racing is a new experience to me and I am definitely running with the fear of burning out at the moment. With how far to go should I be sprinting to the finish? 500 metres?

Despite this I was happy with my result. I came in 18th place overall (2nd in the 25-29 age range) with a time of 22:12 which was a race PB. My friend Kasia who is also vegan and has an amazing new food blog called The Pink Vegan ran her PB with a great time of 26:46.

Before we left Kasia made banana, nectarine smoothies which were delicious and a perfect pre running snack. I would love to hear your pre race smoothies recipes.

Did anyone else take part in Parkrun this weekend? If so how did you get on?