15th March: Daddy Daughter Parkrun

Having been introduced myself to the joys of the Parkrun of late, I made the suggestion to my eldest daughter on one of her previous visits that she might like to try it herself the next time she was over, which she happily agreed to.

This year, like the last couple, we are going to be running our village's race together and I know that my daughter wants to improve her time from before. Unfortunately she has not been finding a regular opportunity to train and prepare for it, so getting out on the Parkrun, which is a slightly longer distance, would be of a great benefit to her in working on her pace and stamina plus give her the confidence in herself to beat her time.

Leaving the hounds at home this time, LSS accompanied my daughters and me to the Parkrun in the chilly windy morning where she and my youngest took-on the photography duties as her sister and I went out to do the circuits.

We set-off at the speed dictated by my daughter, with me trying to encourage her to maintain a steady pace that was not too fast to allow her to speed-up towards the end should she need to… It seems she has got my habit of going off too quickly, so it was really a case of trying to reign-in her enthusiasm as we went!

After this fast start, admittedly she did struggle at times from the beginning of the second lap, so we did have to slow to a walk at times - although never checking our forward progress, and after the 2.5 laps of the circuit the end was in sight, and she did her normal trick of shooting-off like a whippet over the last 30 metres, crossing the line completely out of breath and a face as pink as the trim on her running top!

A marker has now been laid-down by her on the course and she knows what she has to do to better the time in future runs… Incidentally her time was faster than LSS’s best, although LSS does have the handicap of needing to stop when running for Heidi to have countless wee’s and to 'drop the kids off at the pool' at least once!

My daughter was buzzing with excitement at finishing the run and not coming last, and our photographer was buzzing at the thought of having cake and a cappuccino (decaf of course as she is only 8), so we all went in the centre of Basingstoke to celebrate the achievement in one of the many coffee shops, with Parkrun now to be established as a regular event for us all.

Eat pies.
Drink beer.
Run far.