My new love

Over the past couple of weeks I have found a new love................

Pacing.

What a joy it is. I have paced some of the members of Doncaster Triathlon Club to new PB's at parkrun.

The first week, the plan was to pace three members to sub 28 times. Knowing the course at Doncaster, I had to speed up on the tarmac section as I knew the grass section (complete with section reminiscent of a paddy field) would cause the pace to slow.

I tried to keep the mood upbeat and encourage the runners all the way round. After 1.3 miles, one of the runners had to pull out. So now there were just two ad they were keeping with me stride for stride. By the start of the third lap one of them had dropped from me by about 10m. A quick check of my watch and the average pace was 9:04/mi which meant we would just miss out on the sub 28. We picked it up for the last half a lap and they stayed with me.

They crossed the line in 27:19 and 27:30 respectively.

One of the runners said after "When you said only 3 more minutes of hard work... I wanted to tell you to f*ck off I am working hard"

There is something amazingly satisfying about helping people achieve new PB's

So on to another week and I had another parkrun PB attempt with someone. This runner wanted a sub 30:00

After two laps of Scunthorpe including some swearing and lots of encouragement, she crossed the line in 29:56.

I was so thrilled for this runner as they have been chasing this target for a long time. With a bit of motivation and help, they did it. Like I said it is amazingly satisfying helping someone achieve PB's.

So pacing is the new thing I really enjoy. Now I just need someone to pace me to a PB next weekend. LOL.

Michael