PPPB

Today, we loaded up the cupcakes I made yesterday into Panda Car and drove to Bedford.

We met up with some people that Mr Pandammonium has been doing a course with to run 5k faster. Today was the culmination of five weeks’ training to see how much those close enough to Bedford had improved.

I’d wondered what I’d do while he ran.

‘Why don’t you run it as well?’ said that annoying little voice in my head.

‘Now look what you’ve made me do!’ said I to that annoying little voice in my head.

We got there later than planned but still in good time. We got our bibs, I got my race t-shirt, we got our cunning bib magnets – no safety pins for us, like those Olympic athletes! – and stuck our bibs on to our running vests. We found Mr Pandammonium’s buddies.

As well as the 5k, which was last to start, there was a marathon, a 20 mile, a 16 mile, a half marathon and a 10k, all running round the same 5k lap. It was on a motor racing track, so there was plenty of space for all.

We assembled in the starting area.

‘Go!’

I set off too fast, so I slowed down to under 11 min/mile, which is pretty fast for me. I tried to maintain that for the whole thing, although I showed down a couple of times, but never went over 12 min/mile.

It was hard work, especially the long straight that seemed to go on forever upwards, but luckily that was near the end. It was weird being overtaken by people running marathons, but I overtook plenty of people too, although I had no idea what distance they were doing.

Mr Pandammonium came back for me after he finished, spurred me on for a sprint finish. I’d already sped up; I didn’t think I had more in me, but I did. The commentator bloke mentioned me coming in towards the finish line, which also helped. I was too busy breathing to smile for the photo of me crossing the line.

My last parkrun time was 37:02. I finished Bedford Autodrome Running GP in 33:13 (watch time – forgot to stop it), 32:58 (gun time) and 32:44 (chip time). That’s my post-pandemic personal best! I’m well chuffed.

Mr Pandammonium smashed all his goals, so he’s well chuffed too.

See the extras for after the race and a medal shot.

I shared out the cupcakes when we all gathered together afterwards. They went down pretty well. One bloke was effusive in his praise. I was delighted.

Back at home, I put the telly on to watch other people do energetic things (Mr Pandammonium has taken advantage of a Discovery+ offer to get better coverage than the BBC have been able to show) and to work out how to create workouts in the Garmin app to send to my watch because I’m an eejit.