A visit to Dot enabled her to join us on this parkrun, which starts outside a Sainsbury store in Stafford. Sadly she was unable to run; if she had been able to, she would have set a record in the 90 to 94 age group.
Mick and Gayle, who were with us in Montrose last week, turned up again and Mick's ankle injury again prevented him from running. So he wheeled Dot to about 200 metres up the course, where she could observe proceedings from the comfort of her chair.
The pre run briefing at the start of the narrow course required a loud hailer and some large 'Quiet' signs in order to be effective. Despite it being only the 26th run here, there were a number of landmark runs taking place, including one lady who was completing the alphabet challenge - she had completed parkruns whose names begin with every letter of the alphabet. (I've done 15 on that basis.)
I'd decided not to push hard, and I was quite happy to run with Sue at 5 minutes per kilometre pace. That's what we did, reaching the turnaround point on this 'there and back' route in exactly 12 minutes and thirty seconds - precisely as planned.
Distracted by the greenery and birdsong, and many of the rest of the 263 participants coming the other way, it seems that I accidentally accelerated on the jog to the finish. Perhaps it was slightly downhill. Anyway, I kept looking back and Sue was still there. Soon we were whizzing past Dot and Mick, and accelerating to reach the click of the timekeeper. Gayle finished close behind us - a bit of a surprise as she is normally faster than Sue.
We regrouped, M & G shot off to a birthday party, and Sue, Dot and I toddled off to Sainsbury for post run coffees.
The results came through later in the morning. Sue and I really must have accelerated at the end as she got her first ever 70%+ age related result. Moreover, on this - her 148th parkrun - it seems that Sue managed her best ever parkrun time, 24 minutes 16 seconds, beating her previous best by all of three seconds.
Well done, Sue.
The photo was taken before the run, and the full results are here:
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