Poppintree Parkrun

I think it's time I say a few words about my local Parkrun ; Poppintree Parkrun.
It's a relatively 'young' Parkrun, established on Halloween 2014 and growing in popularity since. As metioned before in my previous entry about Parkruns in general, this too, is a free for all, timed 5km race in a park organised on a volunteering basis.
It takes place every Saturday at 9:30am in Poppintree park and the course is three 1 mile laps which might be confusing for first time runners, but you get the hang of it eventually ;)

Poppintree Parkrun Course

This week's run was wet and windy, but we've had worse. I managed to finish as 25th out of 90 runners with officoal time 25min 34sec. I was the 5th female to finish this time, but there were couple of occassions where I'd be 1st female, but those were the times I finished in just over 24 minutes.
My latest Personal Best is 24min and 4 seconds, and I can't get anywhere near this time since November :(

My latest Parkrun stats

Because at Poppintree Parkrun we're not a huge crowd, everybody knows somebody they want to outrun. It's great to see people progressing, getting faster or loosing weight if that's their goal. You can see those determined to better themselves and they set a great example for the rest of us. What is more, each small improvement, every new PB is celebrated by all and serves as a great motivation.

Post Run Selfie

Crossing the Finish Line is a glorious moment for me! No matter how fast or slow I am, volunteers at the Finish Line always make me feel like a champion - how do they do it?!
I think 24:05 is a good time for a shortie like me, but if I could get my dream time, I'd love to be able to finish 5km race in 22mins. I know it's going to be hard, but this is a goal I'm setting for myself for 2016 :) Hopefully with a bit of strengh training and intervals, I will be able to live that dream!

Finish Line

As you can see in the picture above, Parkrun wouldn't be happening without volunteers! Their time and effort is greatly appreciated especially that sometimes they get much colder standing there scanning barcodes that runners on the course...