Having given blood 2 days before, I was going for a gentle run round on my Saturday Bushy parkrun (I know from experience that after giving blood I feel like someone has removed 5th gear from the car!), so after a quick photo of the deer having a paddle I headed to the start.

I bumped into my neighbour Dean and we joked about who would be slower this morning.

I set off a lot further back than normal and settled in for a comfortable run. Around 2.5k (halfway) I caught up with Dean and asked what his PB/PR was, he said 24:15. Come on, I shouted we can beat that if you want. He said he couldn’t as he hadn’t trained all week but I said I was missing a pint of blood which put us even.

Anyway he took the bait and we closed up and started to slowly move through the field together.

I continued to push Dean to keep together and at the last 100m shouted hang on as I broke into my usual sprint for the line.

It worked, Dean achieved a new PB/PR of 23:56, a 19 second improvement, and I had a rewarding parkrun helping a runner and neighbour.

A good morning.