On Saturday morning Katrina and I joined about 30 other runners to test out the latest parkrun at Linwood. Our friend Norman Groves is the Race Director and asked Kilbarchan club members to come along to test out the route.

I like to do a parkrun a week before an ultra so it worked out well. We had run own the route a few weeks ago on a Monday night and I was looking forward to seeing how it would work out as a parkrun.

It was good to see Steven and Isla in the buggy ready to test out the route from a buggy point of view. I did a warm up lap with Steven and we reckoned it would be fine for a buggy. There is just one short section at the far end when it is a single track which would make overtaking harder but hopefully the group will be spread out by then.

I set off with Jennifer with Grant not too far ahead. Jennifer soon dropped back a bit and even though I could see Grant he wasn’t close enough to feel I was running with him!

The first mile took me 6:16. I didn’t look at the watch at all but tried to push as hard as I felt I could. The route is so easy to follow and Norman and his team did a great job marking it out. They only had 3 marshals which was plenty.

I came round to start the 2nd lap on my own and feeling okay. The second lap takes a slightly different route which means that those getting caught will not be in the way of those finishing their run.

The second mile took me 6:42 and I could feel I was starting to slow a bit. I worked hard to keep the pace up on the second lap. One runner did catch me though I found later he is a faster runner who must have set off late or easy!

The third mile took me 6:52 which means I didn’t slow too much so I was happy with that. I finished 8th in 20:17. The first official runs Saturday 9th July. If I have recovered from the Great Glen Ultra I will run. If not I’ll volunteer or watch.

I think the venue will be very popular and hopefully will encourage lots of new runners from Renfrewshire.

In the evening we had a social event with Kilbarchan. We headed into Glasgow and Scott MacAulay gave an excellent talk on preventing injury in running. Scott also showed us some basic stretches which we had a go at.

I realised again that I really need to do some stretches so I’m going to make a bit of an effort. The first one we did was a lunge and I couldn’t event my knee down to the floor! I took a video of it today so hopefully once I’ve worked on it I will be able to better!

I had a run at lunch time today. Tomorrow we head up to Thurso to spend time with family. I plan one more easy run on Wednesday and then Saturday is the Great Glen Race.

Thanks to those who have entered my ‘Guess My Time’ competition. If you want to join in you have until 6pm on Friday.