'I hope you beat him, he looks older than you', I was asked. I regret...no on both counts. This would be Rob, a 16 something 5k'er. Months separate us by age, and almost by sprightly running ability. This is the start line scene at Dunham Massey 5k this evening. Surrounding Rob are a brace of teenage daughters. Whereas Rob is out of my league, his 'weaker' daughter is my prey! Sounds wrong, but as last year, where one second separated us on my way to a 5k PB, this year she again was my mark.
Thing is, I'm getting older and theoretically past my best. She is yet to reach her best...by some margin, so I'm playing a fools game. When Rob arrives, the girls explode out of his car, all long legs like springs, bouncing and jumping around the car park doing their drills, like horses let off the leash to run wild in the meadows. Meanwhile we lean on sturdy objects doing our shoelaces, pretend to stretch and suck on our inhalers. A couple of blogposts ago, I eluded to a notion that I am, in theory, an 18.30 5k'er. That is a specific reference to this race last year. Yet here I am struggling to break 20mins on the Burnage parkrun. I almost changed the figure to 'sub 19', but felt that was dishonest. 18.30 is the hopeless belief in my head, so I rolled with it, a distant dream. On the start line tonight, a few of us asked what we hoped for. This time I was realistic, and said 'anything close to 19', and even then thought that too was beyond reach.
Yet there again ahead of me, just, is my mark..,and I'm still hanging on. A glance at my watch sees an average pace well under 6 min/miles...and I wonder when the wheels are going to come off. They didn't. I didn't catch her, though was tantalisingly close, but I beat my PB last year by 1s. 18.28. Happy with that, though looking alarmingly camp in this photo...and some faith restored in myself and what I can achieve...and how I should trust my hopes and dreams. Believe.
