Parkpacing in Electric Orange
I recently received an email from a man called Steve King, he and and his partner Amanda follow JOG ON, and Steve decided to send me a story about a very special morning at his local parkrun, Market Harborough in Leicestershire.
(As heard on a JOG ON podcast episode)
Parkpacing. I love it, and I know that you do from JOG ON. I feel it’s one the nicest things to do, getting others to a time they strive to achieve.
I’ve officially paced in a blue vest every minute from 21 to 31 at our local parkrun at Market Harborough. With the return of parkrun post-Covid lockdown we have currently suspended the service… however, I had a request to be personal pacer for a couple of brothers who rode into town to take on an age category record.
My friend Alan turned 70 on the day of the parkrun, which fell on Saturday 14th August. Alan and his older brother Ted made the trip down to help celebrate this milestone. They are very competitive runners and the current 70-74 age record of 22:32, held by a local 10 times world champion cyclist, was not going to survive.
My target pace was given as a keen 20:40 so with it being a tight & twisty 3 lap event that thwarts every GPS device; elapsed time and a pacing chart is an essential tool. Luckily we have a local stats man who has created a pacing excel sheet that allows any target time and calculated times at points to assist and sometimes disappoint.
I met the brothers before the event and did a good warm up with them, we worked out that between us we had nearly 200 years in age, I’ll soon be 57. I could tell that they were up for the challenge, with the latest Nike super-shoes on the birthday boys feet, plus a fair bit of green & orange tape on his knee.
I’d checked prior in Run Britain rankings and 20:40 would be solid top 5 for the V70 age grade… could we really get two septuagenarians under 21 minutes and go 90 seconds inside the old mark.
I’d worn an Electric orange JOG ON top to ensure I was VERY visible…
Quick start off the front row of the grid, round playground corner avoiding THE ROCK and after a few minutes started encouraging them and of course the marshalls too. On reaching the trees turnaround for the 1st time we were 2 seconds inside having passed the 1km marker in 4:07. Game on. We stayed just under pace with a second kilometre of 4:07. Back at the trees in 11 dead so the time was starting to drift. Part of the parkpacer skill is to listen to the breathing and I could tell Alan was close to the edge. 3rd km 4:11 so still pretty much bang on. As we started the final lap we had to be cautious overtaking lapped runners. Plenty of encouragement given out to them, and also received back from parkrun friends. A 4th km of 4:12 was followed by a final push and we crossed the line together. So close we all received the same time in 19th 20th and 21st. Ted was gracious enough to allow his younger brother to best him on the day. Ted has the edge at 5km, Alan at 10km.
A quick photo straight after …. I wish I’d had a GoPro to document it.
I knew we were well inside the 22:32 minimum target, but just off my allocated finish time.
I nervously awaited the official text. The brothers had to depart quickly to get back for the birthday celebrations, organised by their other halves.
A few hours later I saw the official result.
So lovely that both now have the honour of holding the record… for now.
Sunday they went for a gentle recovery run after the celebrations, I went with 3 others along the canal for 33.3km. 3 hours of chatting, a lot of 3’s.
If you are ever up in south Leicestershire (maybe if you go to see Richard Blagrove at Loughborough) let me know and I’ll pace you round, you would love the canal up to Foxton locks. At 19:59 I can still just about talk and we can thank the volunteers.
Love the content … the future is Electric orange.
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Thank you to Steve King for that story. If you think you have a running story you’d like to write a page or two about, you can send it to us at thisisjogon@gmail.com and you never know, it might just be selected for a JOG ON podcast episode
