Camels, Cakes and Commandos

1st year Anniversary Colchester Castle Parkrun

From left to right: The Castle, Bandstand and flower display

It was an earlier than usual start for Parkrun this weekend as we were going to celebrate the first year anniversary with some presentations and an explanation of the change of route. 

Sadly, a young man had been violently stabbed to death last week in the park and we took a brief moment to acknowledge such a terrible loss of life. Last week's Parkrun had been cancelled because of that awful event. As part of the course along the river was still closed, a new route had been devised and this was explained to us all. 

Commandos

I belong to a Facebook (FB) group called The Commando Runners. It is, for some reason, a secret group. My friend Becci had invited me to join them but I believe you have to receive an email inviting you to join now.  Nevertheless, there is always a lot of banter on the FB page and it is also a great place to keep up with events.

There are always some members of The Commando Runners at the Parkrun each week which means there will always be someone to chat to before the start of the run.

Several of the group were presented with awards at this first year anniversary and all were well deserved. 

Presentation time for Danny and Ian 

Camels

Ready for the off, Rob and Lorraine, beg your pardon - the camel!

 The runners were invited to wear fancy dress as part of the one year celebrations and many turned up in various costumes. 

Two of The Commando Runners, Lorraine and Rob, had run the Christmas Parkrun dressed as a camel and were told they could have tried for an entry in the Guiness Book of Records. Not to be put off they decided to re-create their run and got together a team to support them which included timing and filming. They did an amazingly fast run of about 25 minutes on a very warm Spring morning. I thought they were absolutely brilliant and gave so much entertainment on such a lovely celebratory day. I hope they are successful with their attempted record breaking.

The Commando Camel Support Team posing with their trademark 'C' hand sign

Cakes

Another highlight of the day was this beautifully decorated cake. After the race we were provided with refreshments and a piece of the cake which was delicious. There were also lots of other home baked goodies and I was very tempted to eat more but resisted.

Yum!

Race Report

• Garmin mistake
• Route
• Pace
• Weather
• Official result

Garmin mistake

I was so busy taking pictures that I forgot to switch my sports watch on and so I  had to wait for it to pick up a signal and then start it. Thankfully it was a timed event and my times are usually the same as my Garmin.

Route

This is now my favourite route

I really enjoyed this alternative route and I wish it were the usual one. I liked it because we didn't have the long slog out along the riverside which I find tedious and tiring. The route we used today held my interest because it was more varied. I wonder how amenable they might be to using these varied routes more often.

Pace

This is an interesting one as I stopped a couple of times to film and I thought my time would be slower than it actually was. The pace I was running was faster than I have managed recently but it felt slower. A running life is a strange one indeed. Nevertheless, this is quite pleasing if I can keep it up and maybe I will have a go at beating my personal best next time. The official results showed this to be my fastest run this year. That is very pleasing.

Weather

No sign of the smog today, thankfully

The race organiser said during the presentations that we had been fortunate in not having any rain in the past year. Today's run was no exception and it was very warm for an early April day. I really admire everyone who ran in a costume, especially the camel.

Official result

A good result came through in an email from Parkrun and that certainly rounded off a really enjoyable and celebratory day.

My official Parkrun result

Vlogging the Parkrun

I took some video (known as vlogging!) of the run - they are a bit wobbly but give a flavour of the day.