Saturday morning saw me going to the Walsall Arboretum parkrun with fellow Marathon Talk fan and runner James, who lives in Birmingham. It’s not local to me at all as I live near Southampton so it was quite the parkrun tourism.
Sadly I do already have a W (Winchester) but I love a bit of tourism regardless and it was supposed to be nice and flat and not too far from where I was staying. James and I got there at 8.30am which felt quite early but actually worked out well because it was about a 1km walk to the start area and we both needed a wee beforehand.
The Walsall Arboretum is a beautiful park. There’s a large pond, lots of trees and grass, a little river flowing over some picturesque rocks and just a pleasant atmosphere. It was lovely. There’s a little cafe as well with a loo so that was handy. Apparently Walsall rarely gets called beautiful but from what I could see, it was lovely.
It was their sixth birthday so there were a few fancy dresses and a good turn out of people.
The run director spent some time thanking everyone and talking about how far they’d come and then the Mayor of Walsall said a few words – quite cool that he was there (tho he wasn’t running). It was really a very friendly and lovely parkrun.
I hadn’t really planned how I was going to run. I set myself a range of between 22 and 24 minutes, thinking that was probably about right. I had my music and was just going to see how it went without too much stress.
As we started my legs felt a little sluggish but then I found my rhythm and got into it. And I really got into it. My legs just seemed to go, go, go. The course was wide enough to easily overtake people and not be hemmed in (where I started anyway) and it was a slight downhill so this worked nicely.
The course is three laps, but it didn’t feel like too much of a drag that some three lappers can because it was split out into two sections really. The first section goes around the lake/pond and then the second runs up a path alongside the river and then comes back down on the other side. So you can see runners on the other side, which is always nice and distracting. (Photos from the Facebook page).
The marshals were super friendly, cheering us along – one of them even holding their parkrun birthday cake for the runners to see. It looked great! I saw James ahead near the front going super fast. His training has been awesome (he’s also doing the Brighton Marathon). But then I just focused on the music and getting my little legs turning over as fast as I could.
I was running alongside a few other guys and this helped me to cling on to the speed. I looked at my watch and noticed I was fully sub-7 minute pace and this both shocked me and gave me a huge confidence boost.
I finished, thought I stopped my walk and headed to see James (who had finished in the ridiculously fast time of 18:23!). Annoyingly I didn’t realise I hadn’t actually stopped my watch so had no idea what my time was! I thought it might be around 21 minutes but would have to wait until the email/text to come through to be certain. I was really happy anyway as it felt like a solid effort of a run and I’d experience no calf or hamstring niggles. Hurrah!
My time came through later as 20:30!! I am over the moon! I cannot believe I managed to get such a speedy (for me) time. James smashed his PB as well by like over 20 seconds. But both of us were concerned about the course being short as James only got 3 miles on his watch and I wasn’t certain at all because I hadn’t stopped my watch, though he checked other people’s results on Strava and it seemed to be fairly accurate – and I guess the trees didn’t help with the satellites. Well, whatever I definitely got a sub 21 minute parkrun (and James definitely got a PB as it was such a significant improvement). Very happy to see the 20s again, despite my rubbish training lately.
I also got to use my brand new very swanky barcode wristband.
Very handy and I love the colour. No more barcode confusions for me…
For lunch we decided to go for something unhealthy and entirely delicious at the Original Patty Man burger place (OPM). We got there quite early and thankfully beat the rush – as we were ordering a queue had started to build up outside!
I went for the bacon cheeseburger with a side of cheesy gravy fires. Omgaawwwd it was so good. 
But extremely messy.
In true Anna fashion though it didn’t leave me stuffed and as James and I had spotted a “dessert lounge” called Pirlo’s as we walked to the restaurant we knew exactly what was going to happen next…
We both looked at the menu and I instantly spotted the biggest sundae option – the mega sundae. Happily James has a similar appetite to me and had seen the same one. When we ordered and the server realised we didn’t want one to share hewarned us of its size… we were like, “pfffft, you clearly don’t know our capabilities”.
The sundae came with chocolate, strawberry and Ferrero Rocher ice cream (which I swapped for salted caramel), lashings of Nutella, cream, brownie and Kind chocolate chunks.
Oh my god it was good. It was enormous but so much fun to eat. Literally chocolate everywhere. I’m changing my opinion on Nutella. I used to be like “meh I don’t care for it” but now I seem to be realising what the fuss is about.
We went home STUFFED. Full to the brim. Luckily we didn’t have much else planned except for James’ running club awards night (where there was a buffet…ahaha). There was a quiz which our team did spectacularly badly in (we came last) but was good fun. I did feel fairly sick though throughout the evening…but a couple of buffet sandwiches and some chicken nuggets helped calm my tummy 😉
The next morning, as James and I are both training for Brighton, we’d planned a long run. James was going to do some tempo miles while I ran an easy 18 (18 miles is NEVER easy but you know what I mean). I was going to follow James’ route but he’d run back to me after his tempo parts (he’d get a solid 20 miles). He’s really good at training, like he does all the proper speed work, easy runs and tempo sand runs like 70 miles a week. Amazing amazing. I wish I could run as much as him but such is life. He’s good to hit up for advice though because he knows his stuff.
My tummy didn’t feel great it must be said. But as we started running it calmed down and I felt surprisingly good. My legs felt fine and I felt in the zone and on it already. James didn’t feel quite as good and decided to just stick with me for the run rather than do his extra tempo miles. I thought that was probably a sensible decision. Our greed got the better of us the day before! Clearly I’m far better than him at over-consumption of food and then running 😉
We ran about four miles to the canals and then ran along them for most of the run. It was lovely and flat and nice underfoot. I obviously had no idea where we were or where we were going but it was nice to not have to think about the route and to just follow someone else.
My dad grew up in Birmingham and one of my granddads lives in Stoke-On-Trent, not too far away, so when I was a child we’d often drive to Stoke and past Birmingham and I’d always remember my dad telling me about “Spaghetti Junction” – with all it’s crazy bridges and roads going over each other. James’ route went underneath the junction so I had to stop and get a few pics.
Even though you probably couldn’t describe it as scenic, it was strangely quite impressive and looked very cool.
It was quite surreal to be running under roads that my parents used to drive us over back in the day. Oh the nostalgia.
The run carried on without any issues for me (asides from a wild wee in a rather open but empty area…the fear was real). I felt bad for James though because his tummy really wasn’t feeling great. But he pushed through. Our pace was fairly easy between 8.20-8.40s and I just felt like I was gliding along. I did get a weird overwhelming sense of tiredness around 12 miles and felt myself lagging a bit but then I managed to pepper myself up a bit and got back into the zone.
18 miles seemed to fly by. The route and company definitely helped it stop being a slog. The weather was wonderful. Sunny and cool, though by 15 miles the two of us were hot and started talking about cold beverages…We stopped at a convenience shop to grab a water which helped!
I am SO pleased. SO so pleased that this long run went well. Big thanks to James for pulling me along and finding a really decent route!
So Brighton seems to be no longer in contention. I just hope that I continue to pootle along as I am. Fingers crossed!
Have you ever been to Birmingham?
What’s your favourite ice cream flavour?
Do you have any weird nostalgias?
Despite this, I’m actually really happy with my time (3:39:58). It was faster than expected. What was nice was that my body fell into a very natural rhythm and pace which I thankfully didn’t have to think too much about while I ran.
Looking at my splits I was quite consistent, though you can tell where I went to the loo twice!
I went at mile six (the beach bum saga) and then again at mile 13 (thankfully a proper loo this time).
I’m really happy with how I ran and that I could step it up at the end. I think I’ve just gotten myself into a really good place where I can judge my body and it’s capabilities. Like going out at 8 minute miles was not going to end well, but 8.30s felt good and left enough in the tank to step it up a bit at the end.
Basically the marathon started around 13-15C and then increased to a high of 29 degrees towards the end! Blimey. But thankfully it was lower than that for the majority of the race.
We got out of the car and I did a bit of a warm-up in my coat by running up the path and back. I did some high knees and kicks… like I knew what I was doing 😉 My dad wanted to post on to his Instagram (which he rarely uses) so I helped him do that.
I didn’t realise we were being photographed! It was only after I asked the photographer if he could take a photo of us that he said he’d already done one but would happily do another. (Thank you 
He was very friendly and kind, even saying if we emailed him he’d print one out and post to it us!
I just got very carried away. The problem was I started right near the front (because there weren’t that many people and I wanted to get a good start)…but seriously too fast! I looked at my watch and it said 6:08! Yeah I hadn’t suddenly gained a load of speed, this would not end well if I didn’t slow down.
The first part of the course runs down a compacted dirt track before then reaching a footbridge that goes over a railway track and road. It’s a very annoying bridge in that it’s quite a windy one to go up and over. It did help slow me down though and I found my right pacing afterwards
You then head towards the Conwy Castle along the pavement before swinging back and then along another compacted dirt track following the banks of the Conwy River. It was a little breezy along here but I was still glad for my shorts despite the cold wind. My upper body was getting quite hot in my long sleeves but the gloves were certainly required.
We reached the turnaround point and it was a very sharp about-turn round a cone. It was like coming to a standstill before having to gain the speed again – not fun! Then we headed back down the path again (missing the puddles like I said). As there weren’t many people the tail end of the runners came quite soon. We followed the same route back (missing out on the run towards the castle) and back over the bridge. This time the bridge destroyed me. I had dropped down to 6.30 minute pace but the bridge pushed my pace back towards 6.40. As I came back to the straight path to the finish I had nothing left to give for the final sprint. I felt like I was crawling as I got back to the finish and was grateful to stop. (
My time was 20:48, second female. I’m really pleased with the time. Still in the 20s! My last time at Conwy parkrun (about 14 months ago) I did 21:40 so I’m over the moon I was almost a minute quicker. I just read back my last post on the Conwy parkrun and saw that I was 17th on that run, whereas this time I was 16th! I was still 2nd female though. Funny.
As I put my coat quickly back on a man came up to me who had finished before me. He said well done on my run but said I started too fast. He said he was surprised at how quickly I set off…and then how quickly I slowed down. He gave me a bit of advice (in a nice way, he was very friendly) and said my time was quite fast for the course, which was very gracious of him (considering there were two 17:xx runners and several sub 20s I’m not sure it’s that fast!!).
After parkrun and breakfast, the whole family headed for a nice walk down to Conwy for a drink in the pub. The walk actually follows a good chunk of the parkrun so I was able to take some good photos
I also spotted a frozen yogurt place! I mean, there’s not even one in Southampton. It was very cold though so I decided not to have any – maybe save myself for another day.
I had planned to do a 15 mile run the next day but it was looking less and less likely as the snow warnings were coming in. My lovely grandparents had actually planned the route for me because I am essentially an idiot. I had a choice of two routes. Either a 3.7 mile loop to do four or so times or a five mile loop to do three times. They were both equally good but in the end I decided to go with the three loop one as mentally it seemed easier to do in my mind (and also there were fewer turnings where I could go wrong…).
Unfortunately, though I woke up the next day and found the snow coming down quite heavily and the ground covered and fairly slippy. I went for a quick walk outside (and slipped on the first step…!) and decided it would be far safer to postpone the run to Monday. Though I was very tempted to go my grandad convinced me otherwise with some sound advice (though I did think he was maybe being a little dramatic when he said I could get exposure and die… these mountaineer types, eh! ;-))
Anyway we had a lovely day nonetheless with lots of walking and then a Christmas meal in their local golf club (of which both my grandparents regular play – they’ve very active!)
I had mushroom soup, turkey roast and then a treacle tart with honeycomb and ice cream. Delicious! And good fuelling for the next day’s long run.
I also emailed 
Rave: Running at lunchtime (runching if you will). It’s so much nicer to run at lunch than it is after work. I’m so much more motivated to run when it’s not as cold and definitely not as dark. It also means I can toddle off home quicker after work.
Don’t get me wrong, I find I do ‘fear’ these workouts and begin them with some trepidation. I know it’s going to feel hard and the temptation to sack it off and do a standard 8min/mile run is SO tempting. But I know this is good for me and the feeling I get when I finish is fantastic. I just need to make sure I stay motivated. I need to mix things up as well so if anyone has any good marathon-focused speed workouts for around 6 miles I’d be grateful for the inspiration…