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My first Park Run of 2021. My last run was just pre-pandemic. I did a couple in 2020. We were about to take it seriously and had arranged for our teenage neighbour to come over on Saturdays to look after the kids so we could both do it every week, but we didn’t even make one outing before the plague descended. So our neighbour missed out on £16 a week and is probably the biggest victim of Covid 19.
I was alone today and hopeful that with all the training (and the speed of the first 10km of the half marathon) that I might be able to finally beat the 25 minute mark. The closest I had come before in a Park Run was about 35 seconds (though I must have been more than capable of that time in my prime - or even during my half marathon seven years ago).
It was good to be back, though numbers were noticeably down on previous Park Runs, but that wasn’t such a bad thing as it meant an uncrowded start. I shot off nice and fast, though experienced a bit of residual stiffness and tenderness in my right leg. But not enough to stop me. Kilometre one and three came in at under five minutes, but two and four were over. I was at the 4km point in 20 minutes and 3 seconds, so needed a final sub 5 minute run to be sub 25 minutes. And there’s a nasty steep bit right at the end.
But I came home with three seconds to spare. I’d done it. And best of all I came in at number 69.
Bizarrely I think I felt prouder of the sub-25 minute 5km than the half marathon. And 5km isn’t bad. It’s basically a quarter of a half marathon. And I had been technically injured for the last km (the tendon above my heel hurt for the rest of the day) so I am a hero. Very pleased that this injury only comes now, after the big race. I have been very lucky to get very few running injuries.
By the time I got home the kids had been whisked off to their grandparents and wouldn't be back til nearly 4pm, but I largely wasted my free time with doing nothing and relaxing in front of the fire. What a terrible waste of temporary freedom.
Tonight I watched some of BBC2's Abba night. I am not a huge fan of the music, but Agnetha was pretty much the first person I fell in love with, along with Brian Connolly from Sweet (but they looked pretty identical). Watching them again I realised how good my taste in women (and men) was when I was seven or eight as Agnetha was utterly luminous and fantastic and if she's reading this, I am still very much up for it. I can leave my family and come and live in Sweden. I only have one ball, best to be up front. Hope that's not a deal breaker.
Back then my fantasy was that she would appear in my bedroom in just her pants. I had no idea why or what would happen then, but her sexiness was so transcendental that it permeated into the brain of someone who didn't even know what sex was.
Although the first programme was almost entirely just contemporary performances by Abba, they were all taken from BBC shows of the time and they kept in the introductions and some of the interviews and it was a lovely nostalgic snapshot of the time, with appearances by Basil Brush and Mr Roy, loads of Noel Edmonds (I particularly enjoyed him on Swap Shop unable to hide his annoyance that only the boys had turned up) and a clip of Mike Yarwood introducing Abba whilst impersonating Larry Grayson, which must have looked weird to anyone who didn't remember Mike Yarwood or Larry Grayson. Could Mike Yarwood have predicted that in forty or so years time the only time he'd be on TV would be in a clip of him introducing someone else? Perhaps most people would have assumed that neither Yarwood or Abba would be a big deal in 2021, but I reckon more people would have plumped for Yarwood if they were given the choice. Show business is a weird and cruel and fairly random affair. Who knows what will endure or why? Who knows who will be the billionaires able to send holograms of themselves off on tour and rake in more mountains of cash?
