I'm still alive! Still playing all the time. I'm playing 6 aside indoor cricket through the winter with 5 others that are significantly younger than me and still holding my own... bowling and fielding. Still can't bat though. I recently did a 25km day hike with a massive rucksack in the 'Bleak' district. That was brutal. The other thing I'm doing apart from strength and agility exercises is running and walking.
So this morning I did a Parkrun on Canvey Island (Thorney Bay parkrun) with my older son Ben, having not run for the best part of three weeks. The intention was to just try and run it (5K) all the way with no walking sections, so that meant I'd probably have to run much slower than I feel inclined to (My PB is 28 mins and 52 secs). My son Ben set off at pace and I realised using him as my pace setter wasn't an option. Then within the first half a kilometre I spotted a woman running at a steady pace that looked do-able, so I settled in behind her and adopted her as my pacer.
Behind me I could sense there was a bloke possibly using me as his pace-setter. The route went out along the river behind the seawall approx. 2.5km and then came back along beneath the seawall for the remaining 2.5Km. There was a photographer at the turning point and the geezer on my shoulder said "Hold in your gut... I've had some awful pics shot of me at these events" and then we started to talk to each other as we ran.
At around 3.5KM in, the 'Pacer lady' stopped and opted to walk and I let the Geezer from Chelmsford I'd been talking to set the pace, we'll call him 'Chelmsford'.
When I run, I generally look around at the people around me, looking for people who in my mind I think I should be faster than... People my age, people running slow, over-weight people of any age, that kind of thing and this bloke 'Chelmsford' was carrying some extra weight, so without considering I might start racing people at the end, I still had it at the back of my mind that I should be able to take him out if a head to head was on. But for the moment, I was still in the 'Take it easy - just run all the way without walking' mode e.g. no fast bits, no exerting myself. Then as we reached Thorney Bay about a kilometre from the end 'Chelmsford' picked up the pace and for a moment I thought 'Oh really? Can I be arsed'? And he started to pull away from me slowly. I weighed up how I was feeling and thought whether I could sustain the extra pace and decided I could, so changed up a half gear or so and pulled him in. I'm sure loads of others do the same thing, they look at me and think yeah I can beat that bloke he's ancient and I think Chelmsford was of that mindset.
The last 600-700 metres or so was around a field in a U shape. A straight section into a big sweeping bend going into a 150-200 metre final straight to the finish. Before we'd even got onto the field I knew I had enough in the tank to do a Keeley Hodgkinson off the bend into final straight and felt anyone else around me was likely to leave their final effort for the final straight section. If I went hard and fast early - halfway through the bend, that would psychologically play with their plans and completely demoralise them. I looked up ahead and it looked like there were about 6 I'd be able get past in the final 400 metres with this tactic.
Then out of nowhere 'Sporty girl' came through on the inside jostling for a place in our group and settled in our pack of about 5 or 6 with another 3 or 4 several metres ahead of us. It seemed she was getting herself positioned for the final straight with me Chelmsford and some others. Then at around 350-400 metres out from the finish on the bend, I made my move from the back of the pack... I went "full Keeley". As I went past 'Chelmsford' he groaned. I didn't look back to see if anyone was attempting to follow me, I easily pulled in the few that were in front of our pack and then reigned in the final bloke about 50 metres from the line sailing past him.
All in all given that I have no enthusiasm for these runs and wasn't sure if I'd have to resort to walking. I was very happy with the time 30 mins plus and 9th place among the 65-69 age group. The blokes ahead of me probably like running and some of them run in clubs.
