Four weeks off. A vomiting bug took the first, a cold that may or may not have been covid took the other three. I didn't test, sometimes it's just easier not to know.
By the final week I'd managed three short runs, just enough to confirm the legs still worked. That was the extent of the preparation. I wasn't expecting much from Saturday.
The Course That Wasn't
There's work on Troon Promenade at the moment, which means the normal parkrun course is off the table. Not just this week. Next week too, June 6th, same arrangement.
So they'd moved us onto what Troon normally calls the storm course, the route they reserve for when the weather is too rough for the seafront. It uses the bottom section of the usual layout, a footpath that runs behind the sand dunes, looped twice. The distance is roughly the same as usual, but the exposed seafront section is shorter. The normal course exits from behind the dunes with just under a kilometre to go. The storm course finishes earlier, so there's only around 400 metres of open seafront at the end rather than nearly a kilometre.
I've never run it under actual storm conditions because I'm not a person who voluntarily runs in storms. Very few people are, which is precisely why the usual storm-course field is small. A reduced number of the particularly dedicated or the people who didn't notice the weather before leaving the house. Either way, manageable numbers for a narrow path.
This Saturday, with the promenade works forcing the diversion, the full Troon field turned out. The conditions were reasonable, drizzly but mild and nothing that would put anyone off, which probably explains it. On an actual storm morning most people decide not to bother before they leave the house.
The Narrow Path Problem
The footpath behind the dunes is perfectly serviceable. For a reduced field filtering through on a rough-weather morning, I would imagine it works well enough. The normal course reaches the narrow section later, by which point the field has strung out a bit. The storm route enters it much earlier, when everyone is still bunched together, so the opening section was a bit congested.
It's also a two-way route, which makes overtaking trickier than usual. It's possible if you pick your moment, but you have to be mindful of faster runners coming back the other way.
To be honest it didn't cost me anything meaningful in terms of pace. I'm not in the business of overtaking many people to begin with. But for anyone who'd turned up with a specific time in mind, there may have been a frustrating few hundred metres of moving exactly as fast as the person directly in front of them, with no obvious way past. I never run for a PB. They happen occasionally, and when they do that's genuinely nice, but a parkrun PB is not something I structure my Saturday around. Which, on this particular morning, was a reasonable approach to have taken.
What Actually Happened
With Roon The Toon a week away, the plan was to use the parkrun as a preparation run rather than a race. I wanted to find a pace I thought I could sustain over 10k and hold it, then push a bit harder over the final kilometre to see how the legs responded. Given where I'd been, it felt like a sensible way to approach it.
This is the mildly surprising part. May was broadly useless, as training goes. Three short runs in the final week being the extent of the preparation. I wasn't expecting much. As it turned out, it went pretty well.
Part of it was the course. The usual Troon challenge is holding your pace through the middle section and then bracing for the final kilometre on the exposed seafront with the wind coming in off the sea. That final stretch, when there's a decent wind off the sea, can take a lot out of you. Today, that wasn't a factor. The storm course stays behind the dunes for almost all of its length with the exposed section much shorter, around 400 metres rather than nearly a kilometre.
The weather helped, or more accurately, didn't hinder. Around 15.1°C at the start, feels like 14.7°C, a bit of drizzle that didn't really amount to much and a south-westerly of about 3 km/h. Essentially no wind.
The legs were fine. A bit heavy, as you'd expect after a month off, but nothing worse than that. No real complaints. I just ran, which is more than I'd expected.
The Numbers
5.05km in 31:55, 6:19/km average. Average heart rate 153 bpm, max 164. Average power 249W, peaking at 304W through the finish. Cadence 163 spm. Elevation gain: 1m. Zero hills.
Weather at race start: 15.1°C, feels like 14.7°C. There was a bit of drizzle on arrival but it had stopped by the time we got going. 3.2 km/h south-westerly. About as comfortable as Troon gets.
| Km | Pace | Avg HR | Avg Power | What Was Happening |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6:29 | 138 | 242W | Congested start, couldn't find a rhythm |
| 2 | 6:30 | 152 | 244W | Field spreading out, pace settling |
| 3 | 6:17 | 156 | 250W | More space, picked up naturally |
| 4 | 6:22 | 158 | 247W | Second loop, working to hold pace |
| 5 | 5:59 | 161 | 262W | Less exposed than usual, pace came up on its own |
| Last 50m | 5:03 | 163 | 304W | Finish sprint |
Finishing Up
Four weeks was a long time out and one parkrun isn't the full recovery, but as a first run back it was more than I'd hoped for. The legs have a week to build on before next Sunday, when I'll be lining up for Roon The Toon, a 10k around Kilmarnock town centre and out through the countryside near Caprington Castle. Going from four weeks on the sofa to a 10k in a fortnight wasn't quite the plan, but here we are.
Troon parkrun takes place every Saturday at 9:30am along the Ayrshire coast. Free, timed, and currently featuring a detour through the sand dunes.