You Yangs Parkrun #35

It’s not often I get to do Parkrun.

I mean I’m still yet to do our new local Parkrun in Ararat.

While in Melbourne for my birthday weekend, I knew that I would be visiting Parkrun.

Now normally when I go to parkrun, I go to the Point Cook Parkrun.

Sometimes I go to Wyndham Vale.

This time, however, I decided to make the decision to go to You Yangs and participate in the Parkrun there.

Now I’ve done a few running events in the You Yangs, so I was familiar with how to get there.

On the way there we could see the moon setting behind the range and with a blanket of fog in the foreground.

We had to pull over to take a photo.

Upon entering the park it’s a short drive from the main entrance and the road is clearly marked to the start location.

The You Yangs Parkrun is a location parkrun, so it’s not a very big field, but it’s well worth the visit.

The park was shrouded in fog, adding to the ambience. In this particular event there was a total of 26 runners.  After talking to a few other park runners numbers were low as a lot of regulars were off in Forrest for Run Forrest.

A funnel-shaped course, the event follows service roads and tracks.

The You Yangs is primarily a mountain biking place, so we had to give way to any mountain bike riders if we encountered any.  I did on this day.

Many runners hate the start of the You Yangs run because it has an uphill start.  It’s a 45m elevation over 1km.

It’s 45m, a blip in my books. Besides what goes up, comes down.

Running an average pace of 4:52/km, I was happy with how I ran on the day.

The day prior I ran 17km of the wonderland course in the Grampians.  There is a segment called “I can’t feel my legs“, and I never understood why it was called this, until this day. Wow were my legs sore.  4km of downhill technical trails will do that to you.

So running that 1km uphill at the start, was a walk in the park in comparison.

Keeping a solid tempo and covered in mist, I crossed the line in 10th place, being the 3rd female to finish in a time of 24:45.

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