I’m looking to get a 5k PB and was wondering if any Brisbane-based runners had good ideas of where would be a good place to do it. I’m thinking probably Sandgate, but wondered if anyone else had ideas.
Kedron or Sandgate. They’re both super flat out and back runs. Sandgate has slightly less elevation (there’s a single embankment to run up at Kedron), but the path at Sandgate gets a bit more congested.
I’ve got 200+ parkruns under my belt, and almost a third of them are at Kedron. I will in fact be there tomorrow :)
Hey, was that you I saw taking photos with the tail walker? Sorry I didn’t wait around to say hi; I was meeting friends for a bike ride at 8. I ended up blowing my expectations out of the water. Beat my PB by over a minute to finish in 17:44. Combination of the super shoes and convenient wind (drafting for half the way out with the headwind before the course thinned out too much to do that, and tailwind back) were a great help.
Yep, that was me :)
And great time! Congrats :)
Nice! I saw the photos on FB. Nice job!
Oh wow, over 200! That’s very impressive. I’ve done…5. I’m not much of a 5k runner tbh. Do more 10ks and triathlons, but I decided I wanted to try for a sub-18 5k before I turn 30 next year.
Yeah I’ve done Sandgate before and I know it to be very fast. It’s where I got my current PB. Haven’t done Kedron before; not sure about that climb. Personally I’m less concerned about congestion than I am about the possibility of having someone I might be able to draft off of or use for pacing near the front of the pack.
I was planning on giving it a go tomorrow, so maybe I’ll see you at Kedron! Have been training with that Train As One app for a few weeks now. It’s been an interesting change to how I train, so I’ll see how it does in terms of results.
Hahaha I’ve got … 1. Took my kid last week for the first time.
Nice! Is kiddo into running or was it just a casual family outing?
Both of my sons run. We are usually doing some other sport on Saturday morning. This time of year, the younger one has little athletes. He was sick last week, so I took the other one to Parkrun. He managed 5km in under 30 minutes. It was the first time he’d run 5km. I really had to push him on that last kilometer, but we were both really proud of his effort.
Wow sub-30 on his first 5k is awesome! Well done!
Is there a UQ parkrun? Lots of people go running along the river there, and it’s extremely flat, although the path is a bit gravelly.
Yeah that’s my local course and it’s where most of my training has been. The gravel has quite a substantial effect on your speed, I find, plus the route they use has three turnarounds which slow you a lot. It’s also not quite as flat as you instinctively think it is, with a bit of a climb up to where the bridge is. It’s nowhere near as slow as something with a large amount on grass or real significant climbs, but when trying to eke out marginal gains it adds up.
Fair enough! I used to live in st Lucia and run from guyatt park to the bridge and back for my 5ks, never joined the park run. Three turnarounds sounds frustrating. Hope you had a good run this morning!
Yeah I used to run 5ks as a loop from the dirt path, up towards the Ville via the back of Grace College, and then back to the dirt path. These days I tend to default to 10k as the dirt path, then along the Esplanade to the St Lucia Golf Course, and back.
And yeah, my run went fantastically this morning, thanks! My goal was <18 min, but considering my previous PB was 18:46 I would have been happy with anything under 18:40. Ended up with comfortably less than 17:50.
Damn, those are some fast times, I never got below 25 minutes. Well done!
Thanks!
There is! St Lucia parkrun. It’s good. Very flat, but the gravel isn’t the best if you’re aiming for a PB
