I arrived at Eglinton Parkrun at 9:05am this morning. I know. I barely recognised myself.
Parkrun starts at 9:30. Turning up twenty-five minutes early might sound completely normal to anyone who has ever, in their life, been organised. For me, it's happened before, but I'm more often the person who arrives with enough time to stand around awkwardly rather than, you know, warm up.
But not today. Today I was early. Today I even did a warmup.
The Warmup (Not a Drill)
A leisurely kilometre before the race, heart rate a very respectable 120 beats per minute, legs loosening up. I had time to take in the surroundings, exchange a nod with other early arrivals, and generally feel like the kind of person who Has Their Life Together.
This smugness would prove short-lived.
150 Metres In
The course at Eglinton doesn't waste any time introducing itself. You're barely 150 metres from the start line, before you've even had a chance to find your rhythm, when it presents you with a short, steep hill.
Not a long grinding climb. Not a gentle incline you can negotiate politely. A proper "oh, we're doing this now, are we?" hill that arrives early, says nothing, and takes your legs with it.
My first kilometre split was 6:37 per kilometre. In my defence, it was entirely the hill. Nothing else to see here.
The Middle Bit, Otherwise Known as Recovery
Once you're past the opener, the course settles into something more manageable. Legs gradually remembered what they were for. Heart rate climbed to a steady working pace. Splits crept down through the sixes. 6:24, 6:29, 6:29. Not spectacular, but honest.
The second half of Eglinton has a quiet momentum to it, and I settled into a rhythm and tried to hold on to it.
The Finish (Familiar, and Not in a Good Way)
Here's the thing about that hill at the start. You know how the course finishes?
You come up the other side of it, crest the top, then drop back down the starting hill toward the finish line.
So you get the hill twice, once on the way out and once on the way back, just from different directions. Legs that have now covered five kilometres. It's really very funny if you don't think about it too hard. Your fifth kilometre, the one where you're supposed to be emptying the tank and sprinting gloriously to the line, involves hauling yourself up one side of a hill before you can enjoy the descent to the finish. The course is bookended by the same hill, told twice, and you're the punchline both times.
My final kilometre came in at 6:18. Fastest of the run. So apparently the legs had something left after all, hill and all.
Celebrity Spot
Here's something you don't get at every parkrun. I spotted Kieran Hodgson at the start line. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you might know him from 2 Doors Down, the BBC Scotland sitcom. There he was, just standing there like a normal person, which gave me approximately thirty seconds to feel like I was part of something culturally significant.
Then the run started, and I never saw him again.
He finished roughly eight minutes ahead of me. Eight minutes. That's not a gap, that's a lifestyle. By the time I was cresting the hill on the back straight, he'd probably already stretched, got a coffee, and was halfway home. I like to think he had no idea I was still out there, valiantly making my way around. A passing encounter at the start line, and then absolutely nothing in common for the rest of the morning.
The Numbers
5.07km in 32:35. Forty-three metres of elevation, a suffer score of 92 (cheers, Strava), and 15 kudos at last count, which I choose to interpret as people being impressed rather than just tapping their screens absentmindedly.
The warmup helped. The early arrival helped. The hill remains the hill's problem, and I'll be back, one day, to argue with it again.
I run at parkruns across Scotland (and occasionally further afield when I find myself somewhere with a Saturday morning free). Eglinton Parkrun takes place at Eglinton Country Park. Free, timed, 9:30am every Saturday.