All I want for Christmas is a PB

Christmas morning and the alarm sounds, I can already hear my mum pootling about downstairs and my brother stirring next door. I get ready quickly and start prep work on the turkey, stuffing and creating a rather beautiful streaky bacon lattice on the top. We arrived at Norman park to join the other parkrunners (125 in total) and lined up at the start. It was nice to see lots of familiar faces and several PWRs flying the flag - Richard in a Santa suit!

Based on our times earlier in the week I offered to pace my brother at 9min/miles which he readily accepted. Little did I know he had his own goal of hitting a PB and getting sub-27 mins for his second ever parkrun (or indeed timed event). My pacing as ever was like a metronome, although slightly faster than I had advertised at around 8:50min/mile. 

Throughout my brother was asking for time checks and pace checks but was holding out well, valiantly he he told me to go faster if I wanted to... but I declined, it was Christmas Day and I was sticking with my big brother!

We could see our mum at various points on the course, and if in doubt we saw her high-viz glove waving manically at us!

As we entered the last half mile, I learned that my brothers target had been for a sub-27 minute and he was asking if it was still possible, I gradually upped the pace and as we hit the final stretch on the concrete I let him loose to sprint to the finish. He crossed the line in 26:37 (exactly 7 minutes faster than his time last Christmas Day) and proceeded to fling himself to the muddy floor, exhausted but very happy!

I crossed about 25 seconds behind - I do not have the capacity or the leg length to sprint like my 6"4' brother! We scanned our barcodes and went back to the finish line to cheer on our Mum as she approached the finish.

What a fantastic start to Christmas Day and now hopefully a secured tradition for all of us - the question is can we get hubby to join us next year!