Barcode printed and laminated – check

Weather forecast miserable – check

Running kit in washing machine – check

Garmin on charge – check

Toe repaired – almost

Not much to it, really. Tomorrow I’m doing my first parkrun. WTF is a parkrun? Well apart from the obvious, it’s a free, measured & timed 5km run in a park. They run every Saturday at 9.00am at 214 locations in the UK and around the world. If you don’t have one nearby, they’ll help you to set one up. To date they’ve held 17,484 races. Visit the website – it’s a real eye-opener.

Apart from being my first parkrun, it’ll also be my first race in about 37 years. The last time I raced my dad was considerably younger than I am now. I remember that last race as being a dreadful, boring run round the paths in a park – it didn’t really live up to the cross country event it was supposed to be. Hmm…sounds familiar. Sure enough there is a parkrun on exactly that route. It’s not where I’m running tomorrow and I’m hopeful that tomorrow’s experience will be completely different. After all I’ve been beating up pavements and streets for the last six months.

Today, accordingly, has been a rest day. If all goes well I may even get another run in on Sunday. 5km should now be becoming my short run distance and my training plan has me running 4 times a week (if you’re looking at the plan, I’ve swapped Saturday with Sunday so Sunday is my long run).

And, of course, I’ll be wearing my Evos.