First Park Run & Technology test

Good evening.

Well today I ran my first 5km Park Run.  I think I have previously mentioned that I still have not worked out what kind of runner I am, and or what distance best suits me.

I have run a number of 10km runs, and usually make the top 10 females and a 3rd or 4th category placing.  Each of the four 5km’s races I have done, including todays, I am normally in the top 3 females and have come 1st in category each time.  Admittedly post 35y plus there are only a handful of female runners at this distance.  My age group seem to love the 10km.

So going in line with my experiment of using shoes and various technology, I advised that I had ordered a Garmin 620.

Well this duely arrived yesterday.  So have barely had a chance to read the instructions, let alone use it, – and bare in mind I do not do technology – cannot even use the remote on the TV!

So I strapped the garmin on today for my first 5km park run event.  I did a couple of warm up drills to see how to work it, thought I had it aced.  Start the race..Boom!  Epic fail, I pressed the wrong button or something.  Any how said I did my first km in 9 minutes- the remaining 4km were bang on.  I still used my running app, and of course the park run results, clearly showed my first km was actually 4:05 mins..  I am sure I have many runs to practice and get the hang of this with.

Okay – so the second element is running with shoes.   Today was raining, raining cats and dogs and the race was 60% of the time in torrential rain downpour..And I chose to run in shoes…blah…BUT peoples, I came across a fellow barefoot runner – Vince..who was totally barefoot…so wished I could join him, but I was determined to carry out my experiment..

The sum of which, a week of running in shoes aka takkies, and the result?  Blisters all over the show…I never get blisters or blood blisters or gammy toe nails (dirty yes) when I go barefoot.

The list of running gear today was:   Running cap (for keeping the rain off my face), New Balance Minimus Vibrams, sportearz wireless bluetooth waterproof earphones for my music and feedback, $5 for my coffee, iphone for my running app, garmin heart rate monitor, garmin watch, my swatch watch, my car keys, my park run barcode tag, my flipbelt for carrying all this stuff, and determination.

Did all the above runners gear make me any faster or a better runner? Mm, my last recorded 5km time was 24:05 in June 2014.  From 5 August I changed my training to suite marathon running.  I only returned to work on Wednesday after being assigned bed rest recovering from pneumonia, of which I still have the lung busting, blood tasting, wrenching, barking whooping style cough.  And I posted a run time of 23:17 today…Ok, so a PB yes..but it did not feel like it to me. I think I run better, or feel better for my run, when I run real barefoot.  None of these gadgets helped me 😦  .  My feet got yet more blisters this week.  The earbuds gave me music but shuffle played Dolly Parton for 10 minutes….The garmin watch got my times messed up, but shows I am using a 206 bpm heart rate and for my age etc I should be a max of 178bpm??

I suppose like all sage advise – using things for the first time should be early in training well before planned race use..  SO I will get a bit more practice in.  BUT, as of Tuesday I go back to running barefoot.  I am actually not enjoying the shod running experience as a general rule.  Yes I will mix it up more, but my real barefoot is definitely my preference..