Run 19 – Market Day. 3/07/2019
Up until now I thought the worst place to run was the CBD at peak hour, but now I know that trying to run through Queen Victoria market during the winter night market is even worse. Slowing to a walk is bad but coming to a complete stop – that’s just fatal in an attempt to run a sub hour half marathon. But the vibe was great and the atmosphere was fun. Interestingly, I can’t remember the last time I had a fun and enjoyable run and still broke the 1 hour half marathon target. Just goes to show that fun and performance usually don’t match up.
But at least things got better. Left the city and headed for the second market – South Melbourne. Mostly closed except for a few food stalls which meant less people and less delays so I felt able to pick up the pace despite having already lost time.
And then onto Prahan Market, where everything was deserted and closed. Had it not been so dark and poorly lit, I would have no doubt been able to pick up even more speed. Having done the three markets I headed down Chapel St towards home. The darkness had gone but the people were back – so no speed increase. Easy finish with no records in sight, although I didn’t have to detour as much tonight to make it to the 21.1km. Just good judgement on the distance. Ran virtually the same time as last Saturday at 1:45:59 – that’s not bad for a slow Wednesday.
My Three Learnings
Queen Vic market at night – good food, bad run destination if speed is the goal.
Confirmed that darkness and high speed running are not a match.
Sometimes you only learn two things on a run.