Training: Weetslade fantasy parkrun (reverse)

Finally made it back to Weetslade Country Park for another fantasy parkrun, a full 7 months after my first visit. So much for my excitement at making up parkrun courses; this place is only just round the corner from me too! 🙄

This time, I ran the route in reverse to see what it was like. Given this would mean tackling the steepest hill on the course going uphill rather than downhill, I wasn't expecting it to be faster — especially given I'm still feeling a bit off my best pace. In the end, however, I managed to do a Google Fit-measured 5km in a time just one second slower than my time from last June. I'm calling that a victory. (Yes, I did say "slower" but come on... this was the harder way. 👀)

Note how the Pace trace doesn't match the per-kilometre pace table below it. Google Fit, innit! 🙄

Anyway, yeah, doing it in reverse this time did at least avoid the knee-jarring descent that was an issue last time. But it replaced it with an absolute crawl up to the top of the hill, which was pretty embarrassing as I slowly and noisily made my way past the dog walkers. 😂 Of which there were many. The place was overrun with dogs today. I mean, it's described as a dog-walker's paradise, but they'd really taken it to heart.

Weetslade Country Park earlier today... kinda. (Not really.)

Of course, once you make it to the top of that climb — which reminded me a lot of Chopwell Wood's climbs — you arrive at what I described last time as "a highly exploitable, smooth downhill section". I can tell you now, I was in no fit state to exploit anything at that point. I'm sure it would be great for the sub-20-minute 5K runners, but I was just wrecked. Maybe I was a little faster to recover and use the downhill on the second lap, but on the first lap, I spent the full descent just recovering from the climb. Maybe I'd put too much into the first couple of (flat) kilometres; who knows?

By the time I'd finished, I felt I'd given myself a really good workout. The oh-so-slow uphills were a little disappointing, but I'd not resorted to walking and, ultimately, got a time I was very pleased with — for where I am right now, at least. And it means I still got out to do a hard 5K on a weekend when I chose not to parkrun again; this time, due to a combination of a sore left leg and foot, and a bad night's sleep for both myself and the wife.

To round off, let's just look at Google Fit's revised assessment of my pace; I literally watched it change its mind as I typed this post. At least this version actually reflects how much I feel my pace dropped off on the climbs:


I'll never truly understand the Y axis scale though. 🙄

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