Digested read: went to Frickley Country parkrun for some tourism. It was only their fourth event (bless), but ran like a well oiled machine. It was reet nice. Thanks all. You may be a relatively new arrival, but you appear to have emerged fully fledged. Hurrah!
Undigested read: (it’s a long one, again, remember, read responsibly, leave time to adult, or not, where applicable and according to your needs and preferences but don’t blame me for tasks undone).
So much I want to tell you about this parkrun. It was jam-packed with celebrities for starters (though we can take it as a given that all parkrunners are heroes). There is however, one particular completely brilliant feature that confounded all my previous parkrun expectations. Desperate to blurt it out right now, but you know what, I’m going to save it for later, because I think – hard as it is to comprehend – it will be even more fun if you experience the delayed gratification that I too underwent on my sojourn to Frickley this morning, before getting to the big reveal. Well, here’s hoping anyway. I know, hope over experience, but you’ve gotta have hope, especially in times as dark, dismal and divisive as these… In fact, I’m almost wondering if I shouldn’t tell you, in case that means you lose the element of surprise when you rock up for your inaugural Frickley Country parkrun experience. It’s quite a dilemma, responsibility even. I’ll have to wait and see…
I’ll tell you something straight up though (see what I’ve done there? Pun intended) this was definitely an ‘undulating’ course, properly so. And I speak as a veteran of many a Sheffield parkrun. You know what, I’m going to really stick my neck out and concede there were actual hills. You’ll get fit if Frickley Country is your home course for sure. Even if ‘just’ hoiking yourself up to one of the higher marshalling points. And for your information, this isn’t even The Hill, and this hi viz hero still had to set off at dawn to allow enough time for him to summit before we parkrunners descended…
But I’m getting ahead of myself here, stop distracting me with all this hill-talk all I’ll never be finished with this account, let’s get back to basics shall we – you can always skim read if you are getting bored impatient.
Confession time. I’d never even heard of Frickley ’til a couple of weeks ago. No idea where it was, but it popped up as my NENDY (nearest event not done yet) and so it seemed that it’s a relatively new event (this was their fourth) that snuck under the radar, presumably wanting a quiet inaugural, which is fair enough. I’m upping my tourism lately, for various reasons I can’t be bothered to elaborate on here, and so it seemed a logical choice for a Saturday morning jaunt out from Sheffield. So, in case you, like me, have been living in a state of ignorance about Frickley, I can tell you this, Frickley Country park
is a former colliery and now is now an attractive open space. It has over 7 miles of footpaths and cycle-ways, giving you great opportunities to walk, run, cycle and escape in this natural environment. There are also several works of art which hark back to the land’s industrial past.
and is located
to the immediate south of South Elmsall, West Yorkshire. It’s situated on the southern side of an urban settlement, bordered to the east and south by agricultural land with broadleaf woods, and to the west by a railway and spoil heaps
So now we all know. Firmly in the Yorkshire and Humberside section of the parkrun events page.
I feel enlightened. One of the many fab things about parkrun tourism is that it has been most educational. I’ve visited places that I might never have reason to stop at before and met some fab people along the way. What’s not to like. Also, many fine mugs of coffee drunk along the way (apart from Doncaster parkrun, that was an ace visit but worst coffee ever experienced ever, not just at parkrun even). No parkrun trip, however far ventured, is ever wasted. FACT.
I was trying to remind myself of this when my alarm clock went off and I woke blinking and confused staring into the dark. Felt like I hadn’t slept, but I peered out of window and established there was no ice, so it was trip on. I always worry about getting lost so left loads of time, so it was pitch dark as I ventured out. I hate driving in the dark, roll on long summer days when parkrun tourism can occur in daylight. It was an easy drive from Sheffield to Frickley, though inevitably further than I thought. The Frickley Country parkrun directions stated (correctly) that the
Sat Nav code WF9 2EQ. This postcode is accurate to within 200 metres of the entrance (do not turn into Colliers Way – dead end, unless on foot). The entrance (unmade road) is 200 metres ahead between Frickley Colliery Welfare Cricket Club and Broad Lane Business Centre. The Frickley Athletic Football Club Pavilion is located off Westfield Lane South Elmsall Pontefract. There is signage at the entrance to the Football ground.
There is ample car parking available free of charge at the Frickley Athletic Football Stadium/Pavilion. There is additional free car parking around the site (Doncaster Road car park entrance and at Curlew View car park entrance) however they are approximately a 10 minute walk to the start/finish line
It wasn’t difficult to find, but, as I was early, the entrance, though clearly marked, didn’t inspire confidence. It takes you down a rather potholed track, and you approach it through quite dense housing, so it felt counter intuitive.
I was quite relieved to espy the parkrun flag, and made my way through to a soft of fenced off carpark area. There was indeed loads of parking first thing, anyway, however characteristically, I was immediately overwhelmed with the decision making involved in choosing the correct space. I then went for a quick explore of the entrance area to the Frickley Athletic Football Club, which had some (to me at least) highly entertaining signage. Loved the Big Fellas clothing notice and was especially taken by the evostick sponsorship as I didn’t realize adhesive was a natural bedfellow for football league support. See, once again, parkrun was proving most educational. There was plenty of extra parking space, though not marked out, so potentially a bit of a free for all in terms of finding a spot. Less salubrious, was the copious amounts of dog poo everywhere around the entrance area. Not a good impression, stick to the tarmac dear reader I’ll say no more.
Oh, and I took a ‘before’ selfie, because you have to, don’t you, it’s the rule at a new parkrun location. I think it must also be a given that it’s deeply unflattering, well that rule works for me, please gawd I don’t actually look like this in real life – mind you, wait til you see the ‘after’ shot. After shock more like….
Emboldened by my foray around, I approached the club house. You could see a veritable army mass of hi-vis marshals milling around through the windows. Others were arriving too, loads of tourist buffs, and there was a sort of air of eager anticipation. Unlike other parkruns I’ve been to, because this is a relatively new event, there was a sort of collective uncertainty about where facilities and the course was, but it was exciting, like we were all about to embark on a grand new adventure.
The club house has much to recommend it. It was roasty toasty warm for one thing, which may or may not be a good thing on reflection, as it was hard to prize yourself away from it. Coffee was available pre as well as post parkrun. There were loos – indeed an actual changing room with showers and a treatment bench thing, if only I’d thought to bring my personal masseuse with me this morning we’d have managed just fine. It did look a bit like an old-fashioned asylum as portrayed in an old horror film, but apart from that. Also, you get to feel important on the way in, as there is a sign up making it very clear that only VIPs are honored with using that particular entrance.
Having executed my first precautionary pee of the morning, it was time to have a little scout around the course. The sun was rising, and I contemplated chugging up an adjacent hill to get a better shot, but instead tried for ones on lower ground. Dog poo alert again, so much dog shite around the football pitch areas, I should have gone up the hill. The poo problem seemed quite localised, I assume from people watching matches paying no attention to their hounds prolific ‘toileting’ – it didn’t help there were no obvious poo bins, it was a real shame, very off putting. Basically, my top tip is treat the whole grass area around the football pitches and the rough parking areas around the entrance area as if they are mined with dog poo. Tread on these areas at your peril. You’ll have no recourse, I strongly suspect there is no DNA testing of dog poop in this location. However, try not to be put off the whole parkrun experience by this first impression, granted the bar is set quite low, canine faeces proliferation wise, but honestly, things got very much better from hereon-in! I will resist the temptation to insert here a photo of a dog mid-poo, instead going for this positive imagery of a very finely executed poop scoop by parkrunners and barkrunners doing the right thing. Good to know!
Back to cheerier themes, sunrise picture wise though, no worries, others did make this foray to higher ground and I am shamelessly using their pics alongside mine. If you want to know which is which, basically their ones are the money shots, and mine isn’t. Hope that helps.
So first impressions. Well, sun rise, huge expanse of space, and yep ‘undulating’. I was sort of lurking and overhearing other conversations. One was pointing to a steep hill, and saying ‘of course that’s not The Hill, that’s over there‘ as she gestured wildly in some other direction. I didn’t pay all that much attention. We have hills in Sheffield. It’d be fine.
I wandered down to the finish area, distinguishable by a very fine pop-up finish sign, way more sophisticated than I’ve seen in any of our more local runs. It is two-sided so one side says ‘finish’ and the other, creatively, says ‘start’. However, although you might think this is a boon, it was actually a bit confusing, and I noticed it did get turned around a few times this morning. So when I first went down ‘finish’ was towards me, but later it was changed to show ‘start’ so you could see where to assemble as you emerged into the park area from the clubhouse, but then you actually line up behind it so it feels like you are running through the ‘finish’ as you head out. Don’t worry too much though, everything worked. Here is a picture for identification purposes:
I got acquainted with another tourist from Huddersfield (wave of hello inserted here), who was telling me about a new run there, Storthes Hall parkrun, also new to the parkrun party, so that can be added to my to do list. It’s quite exciting, all these extra parkruns popping up all over. She was watching her tourist buddies warming up, they looked impressive sprinting down the hill. Personally, I like to save my running around for the actual run, though with the benefit of hindsight, for this particular parkrun a warm up lope along somewhere is probably a good move. More of this later.
I had to have my second precautionary pee of the morning, and did some milling around self-consciously. Volunteers started to emerge from the club house and head out to their individually identified hot spots.
More and more people started to descend on the area. The anticipation built.
After a bit, a call went out for the first timers briefing. There was a fair few of us, the majority were tourists, but some were locals, some even first time ever parkrunners, sigh, their lives will never be the same again. I followed the mob to the briefing. There was a description of the course. ‘See that hill, it’s not that one that everyone has been talking about‘. Oh, maybe I should have concentrated a bit more on understanding what the course was like. Clearly this mythical hill is a thing of wonder, and not to be approached too lightly. All were welcomed, and having established no-one was intending to be faster than 20 minutes, the basic advice is to follow the person in front and listen to marshals, which always works for me. All friendly though, and welcoming, which is the main thing. Thank you welcoming first time briefer.
Hang on, should probably do the official Frickley Country parkrun course blah de blah, here it is:
The start and finish are located at the Frickley Athletic Football Club Pavilion. The course consists of mixed trail surfaces. The course is exclusively the Frickley Country Park site. The majority of the course (4K) is one lap, with an additional (1K) loop. The course is undulating, with a challenging hill section at 1K point, however the views from the top are worth the effort of the climb.
Hmm, sounded innocuous enough. It looks like this:
So now we all know.
More milling and chilling. Whilst we were waiting patiently assembled at the start, a fine dachshund caught my eye. We were formally introduced later on, but he was clearly a parkrun pro. He was outraged at the hanging around and trying to alert his handler to his impatience at this unexpected lull in proceedings. Clearly he was used to a speedier start. His handler made an abortive attempt to lead him away from the start to minimise the disruption caused by his barking, but this made things worse. Troy (for that is of whom I am speaking) was provoked even further because his idiot handler was clearly trying to go the wrong way! Honestly, it must be so frustrating when you are a barkrun pro and the idiots around you are not following your expected parkrun protocols!
After a bit, there was a further call for attention, and this time it was the Run Director’s briefing. She didn’t appear to be wearing the traditional (I thought) blue hi-vis. Whether that was because they don’t yet have one, she preferred to go undercover for surveillance purposes or it was just forgotten I cannot say. However, in a much more dramatic break from tradition, I can report dear reader that there was proper, respectful silence for the Run Director during the briefing. Hallelujah! That made a refreshing change. I suppose it does rather suggest it was because this was a new event so people were paying attention. The depressing truth that goes alongside this is all the people yakking through other run briefings at parkruns nationwide are regulars. Oh well, not so here, we can celebrate that. We were reminded that there is a loopy bit you do twice, so keep to the left on that unless overtaking. This all makes sense once you’ve done it, but not really in advance. You could get away with just doing it once, but really, you’d only be fooling yourself and you’d never get another pb so where would be the fun in that? Not only do run directors in general rock, obvs, but this particular RD has her own rock on which to stand to deliver said RD briefing. Another fine innovation from a new parkrun. There was also a warning that there is a rogue Frickley Parkrun Facebook page out there, but it has a capital pee, so would fool no true parkrunner surely! 😉 Seriously though, how has that happened, bit weird for someone to choose to do that…
‘Twas a brief briefing. 3 2 1 Go! And we were awf. Troy was mightily relieved, and it did start punctually, the milling around was because we were all keenies in situ nice and early. Of we went, up the path and then first left and even more up as we tackle the a hill. Over two hundred runners. It was a fair old heave ho. Hence my earlier comment maybe a warm up would have been a good idea. I found this parkrun hard from the off.
There were a few buggy runners. Respect to them! Although the paths were firm underneath, there was a fair bit of mud on top, and with that, and the hills from the outset, it was nigh on heroic to get a buggy round, but plenty did, and overtook me to boot (though that’s not quite such an impressive achievement as I might wish to believe).
Up, up the hill, thanking our cheery hi-vis heroes as we passed.
I was towards the back, I always do start further back these days, and it was quite something to see the colourful snake of runners snaking up ahead and over the brow of the hill, which somewhat made up for my growing sense of panic that I’d be left behind completely! Maybe if I spent less time taking blurry photos and more time actually running that would be less of a real peril!
Coming over the top of the hill you are rewarded by great views, the relief of a bit of flat, and then some down hill -which was fine but a bit steeper and rougher than the generally compact trails might suggest. I was glad of my trail shoes – then again, I am a bit of a scaredy cat, so always favour a bit of extra grip on unfamiliar courses.
I found it quite interesting running through this reclaimed colliery site, though I guess inevitably its history will be complicated. It reminded me – unsurprisingly of Gedling, another reclaimed colliery. A lot of effort has gone into creating these spaces, and they are impressive, and over time, as trees mature, will become even more so. Still, no time to think about that. Getting to the 1 km mark, I saw it. The Hill. Yep, that’s a hill. Sufficiently steep that the path zig zags up to it rather than going straight up. Fab marshaling position at the bottom of the hill gave great views of the thread of runners hoiking themselves up, some with more grace and elegance than others! There were some trodden linking sections where other walkers had taken ‘short cuts’ straight up, but I’m not sure you’d gain anything at a parkrun by so doing, they were pretty steep, you’d end up sliding right back down again if you gave into misguided temptation to cut a corner anywhere. Looked great though. Again, I’ve borrowed some photos of others to create some mood shots for you. Hoping those who put their photos on Facebook will be magnanimous about sharing them here.
Not gonna lie. That hill was tough going. If this was your local parkrun you’d get seriously fit running up that hill even just once a week. Weirdly, when I checked out the elevation for this route afterwards, it was ‘only’ 257 ft, compared to say Graves parkrun (new route) which is, according to my Strava more at 340 ft. Graves doesn’t feel so hard to me, but then again it is familiar. Not loving the uphill finish at Graves though, oh the shame if you can’t keep you puff and running up for a final flourish!`
Mind you, don’t know what I’m moaning about, have you seen what some women are capable of? Can we have a moment to celebrate these amazing women have done. A group of five Aymara indigenous women from Bolivia – known as the cholita* climbers – have summited Aconcagua (6961m) in the Argentinian Andes near the border with Chile. 6961 metres is 22837.93 ft, apparently, let’s call it 22838 ft shall we? Which is like doing the ascent at Frickley Country parkrun 88.8638132296 times. Let’s call that 89 times shall we? Impressive. They look very jolly, I think they’d make fine parkrunners, shame parkrun has yet to make it to Bolivia.
I barely made it up the hill once. To add to the stress of it all, there was a photographer lurking at the highest point! Great sense of humour the Frickley folk were sporting there. They must have captured some corkers!
Update: yes they did get some corker photos, and shared them too, here are some, thank you Frickley Country parkrun volunteer, much appreciated. Told you those buggy pushers were hardcore, and that dachshunds are feisty. Confusingly, I’m sure at least a couple of the photos were from a different spot at the bottom of a hill, but you get the gist, I’m sure. Disappointingly, I don’t think the gradient is fully obvious from these shots, but maybe the grimaces on the photos tell their own story. Come and run it for yourself and then decide…
You are rewarded for this second ascent with more flat, which you can enjoy as long as your lungs aren’t too full of blood from the earlier exertion. You can really see for miles, the landscape is in no way ‘natural’ but it is full of interest. There were lots of features to appreciate, strategically placed benches (NOT intended to be used as resting points mid parkrun but I suppose if you really had to), with lovely side silhouettes of people staring out to the view, and little design references to the history of the site.
Nice.
Again, the views stretch out in front of you, and you can follow the brightly coloured snaking line of running tees like a trail of bread crumbs to see your way ahead.
Another smiling marshal stops you getting lost en route:
This is where it turned out there was a strategically placed video camera, recording everyone as they passed. There was also an overhead buzz, which turned out to be a drone, seemingly following us along, but I don’t know if that was there by chance or a Frickley Country parkrun surveillance initiative, I think probably the former. Though the psychology of being watched is fascinating. I definitely didn’t want to stop running for as long as I thought I could be seen. Childish, but true….
Oh, and the Frickley Country parkrun video for event #4 is here, I didn’t realise I looked quite so comical when I run, oh well, at least it got me scampering in an ‘I’m trying to run a bit’ rather than blowing my nose or gazing about or giving up and ‘power walking to save myself for a sprint finish’ all of which were plausible options on this course. I did manage to screen shot a still from it though, and it is actually quite fun and quite therapeutic to watch the whole field pass by if you have time to watch the whole sequence. Quite a continuum of approaches on display there. Thanks Frickley Country parkrun for the video innovation. It seems to have been a regular feature for the last couple of weeks, though I wouldn’t bank on it being there in perpetuity… however you never know do you. So be prepared parkrunners, be prepared! At least they had the generosity of spirit to capture us on a downhill section on this occasion – it may not always be just so!
Shortly after being recorded for posterity, you encounter the looping the loop bit. It sounds confusing but it just isn’t. Marshals point the way, and signs back it up, plus, it is depressingly obvious you are going to have to run round twice, as you can see the faster runners on a downward descent for round two as you approach. Don’t worry, if you are a faster runner, they have sentries marshals on hand to direct you back round so you don’t miss out on the two lap fun factory provided for your delight.
The photos don’t reflect it all that well, but the loop goes up hill again, I quite liked this bit. You keep to the left unless overtaking, but it was quite spread out by this point and seemed good natured. There was mud and puddles a-plenty, always a boon. You emerge at the top alongside a housing estate that abuts the country park, they must have great views. Another straight bit … which would take you to the finish, except for the cheery and vigilant marshal to direct you back down the hill again to have the fun of running round in a bit circle all over again. There were also some runners that who had presumably already finished, as they were coming in the opposite direction doing a cool down lap I suppose, another bright idea I have yet to implement. I’m a running minimalist at heart, I really do need to start getting more disciplined if I’m going to get my long runs in… At least I hope they were doing a cool down lap, otherwise some of us were definitely going the wrong way…
Hurrah! An added bonus, was I spotted this fine obelisk like structure on the second circuit. Marking the site of some colliery construction or other. It looked almost mythical with the early morning sun back lighting it quite gloriously. Yep, my camera has failed to capture that as well. You’ll just have to use your imagination.
More breathless thanking of marshals and back up the hill
and then ‘suddenly’ you are homeward bound.
Surely it can’t be? Is that the finish in sight? Down hill as well?
The thing is dear reader, this was the most exciting bit that I wanted to blurt out right at the beginning. This was the unexpected, to me unprecedented and yet pleasing parkrun innovation. Spoiler alert, if you want to keep the surprise for yourself, you are going to have to skip this whole paragraph, otherwise the secret will be out of the proverbial bag. Your call. Ready? Well, you aren’t going to believe this, but, I kid you not, they’d moved the proverbial goal posts in our favour! Usually, as soon as I see the finish funnel (unless it’s an uphill finish like the aforementioned Graves parkrun) I immediately put on what is for me a sprint, due to this primeval fear that if I don’t the volunteers will all start to dismantle it and move it further away as I approach. Well, you’ll never guess, but here, the complete opposite happened! I’d assumed – nay, I’d go so far as to say ‘been led to believe’ the start and finish were at the same place, because of the push-me pull-you start/finish sign previously mentioned. Here, whilst we’d all been parkrun/ walk/ jogging about up and down hill and round in circles the volunteers had moved the finish closer to where we were running from! This genius innovation is incredibly good for morale, and also has the added advantage of you finish at the entrance for the clubhouse, very handy for coffee cravers everywhere. Brilliant.
As you pass the time keepers you get a token the far end of the funnel, and then there was a scanner metres away, all extremely efficient. This may be a new parkrun but their systems seem to be up and running with gusto as well as well oiled efficiency.
I lingered a while at the finish, cheering in the few who were still trailing in behind me.
I espied the first aid kit and defibrillator on hand. I was going to make some quip about didn’t know ipads could do that, but turns out there was a reminder of the life saving potential of defribs as one had to be used at Bushy parkrun this morning. The person concerned seems to be doing well, but it I suppose as more and more people embrace parkrun, law of averages means there will be occasional incidents when these are needed. I know of a few incidents now. I wonder how many parkrun purchased kits have been used, not necessarily at parkrun, they often become an asset and resource for whatever venue hosts them.
I tried to get some arty shots from the steps by the pavilion. I know, but sometimes remember it is the thought that counts, and in these early days of Frickley Country parkrun’s evolution, maybe even blurry photos will play their part in contributing to the event archive.
I’d hit the jackpot earlier with my parking, being just outside the club house, so easy enough to retrieve my fleece and cash for coffee. First though, the mandatory after selfie shot:
Yep, the running had taken it’s toll with all those hill, no wonder I was looking a little green around the gills.
Still, not to worry, fleece on and into the warm embrace of the cosy club house. You could pay £1 for cheap and cheerful coffee – there was also a hatch selling bacon baps and circus tickets (?) but I’m vegetarian and anyway, had my eye on the Proper Coffee. I made my way to the proper coffee corner, where the vendor was diligently mopping up quantities of hot foamy spilt milk with a rather inadequate looking paper towel. ‘There’s been a catastrophe‘ he said, or something similar. ‘Not a catastrophe‘, I helpfully advised ‘a learning opportunity!’ I don’t really think that, it was post-run endorphins speaking probably, but also, you know what they say about spilt milk. No point. No point at all. I’m sure it wasn’t a world weary look I got in return. I did however get an extremely fine latte for the bargain price of £2. It was really good. Only observation was that I couldn’t see anywhere you could get water from, though I didn’t ask to be fair. Coffee was great and cafe area really warm, in every sense. A very friendly hub bub was all around.
Fortuitously, my tourist buddy I’d met at the very beginning of the day, was the person in front of me in the coffee queue. She invited me to join some other tourists who all meet up together at various events all over the place. I was greatly honoured. Who knew that there was this whole parallel universe of traveling parkrunners. I was invited to take a seat, which was initially somewhat awkward as the most obvious place was already taken by another parkrun touring celebrity, dear reader I give you Bully, the touring mascot:
Cow cowl made manifest! I’m a bit confused about what the name Bully might infer in terms of gender identity, but then again, that’s an artificial construct isn’t it, maybe they identify as non-binary or something…
Even so, I was made very welcome, and it was great hearing about all sorts of touring adventures and meeting Troy properly and hearing about specialist parkrun groups – did you know there is a closed Facebook parkrun group for the deaf and hard of hearing no? Me neither. It’s great to see how parkrun is evolving.
It was good to meet a true local on her first ever parkrun too (wave). She was telling me about running in Canada, which got to the minus twenties I think she said. I can’t even imagine that. Frickley Country parkrun would be great to have as your local I think, it seemed really friendly and a challenging course too. All good.
Photos, obviously, in many and varied permutations, it wasn’t just me who was after photos this time. Love parkrun tourists, they get it! Smiley Selfie Queen would be among friends here:
You’d have thought the delights of hobnobbing with parkrun tourists and locals alike, couldn’t be topped. But before I left, I sought out the erm, not sure how to express this with due reverence and political correctness – let’s go with veteran marshal. He’d been out cheering us at the top of the hill, and I reckoned it was a reasonable punt that he was probably post fifty say and particularly wanted to say hello to him because I thought my mum might be interested in hearing about another vintage volunteer. Well dear reader. Result! Not only was he incredibly friendly and obliging posing for lots of snaps so I could get the perfect pose
but also, turns out he is a parkrun celebrity in his own right! My mum may have Elisabeth’s corner at Bushy parkrun – of which she is rightly proud, but this was Ken of Ken’s corner at Pontefract parkrun!
As my regular reader knows, I never name anyone in this blog… unless, they are a celebrity and therefore already in the public domain. Clearly Troy and Ken both fall into this category. Respect! I felt really honoured!
Is there anyone involved with Pontefract parkrun that is more inspirational than our very own Ken Bingley? With 167 volunteer sessions behind him and 112 runs, it’s no surprise that we’ve named a corner after him.
It was chance that brought him to Frickley Country parkrun today, apparently Pontefract parkrun was cancelled, their loss, our gain. Because it basically launched Ken off on his winter progresses, like Elizabeth I, I think it was her, that did progresses out and about. I’ll need to google that now… Yep, ’twas apparently she headed off when London was hot and insalubrious Ken was off exploring because he couldn’t miss a parkrun fix. Quite right too.
Now I’ve got to put Pontefract back on my list so I can get a high-five from the great man himself in his native habitat. Can’t wait! Anyway, he and his family were individually and collectively awesome, full of running stories and top tips for races (Grim up north series anyone?) and parkrun tales. Result. Also, only now I’m home and making merry with Bing (having a day off Google) have I discovered he ran his first marathon in Sheffield, back in the day when we still had one. Rumour has it you got an ashtray instead of a medal for running that at one point, I wonder if he got one too! Another reason for hoiking myself round Pontefract, I now need to know! Mind you there are other surreal findings in post-run doggy bags even now….
So that was that, pretty much last to leave, the hub bub of the coffee drinkers abated and the floors were being swept around us. Call me massively intuitive and empathetic, but I took that as non verbal communication from our hosts that they were wanting to pack up and go home. I’m sensitive like that.
Fond farewells were exchanged, along with promises to meet again, as I’m sure we will!
Job done.
Can we have a virtual cheer and hi-fives all round for the Fabulous Frickley Country parkrun event team and volunteers, it’s no mean feat to get a parkrun off the ground, and they have done brilliantly, if today was anything to go by. Thank you all, your efforst are appreciated, you should have your own capes in recognition of your parkrun super-hero statuses.
Oh, and finally, you can read the incredibly speedily produced run report for Frickley Country parkrun #4 here. Another tourist perspective. There were a lot of tourists and visitors today.
and talking of parkrun reports, my mum got a mention in the Bushy parkrun Run Report 773 for today too. Hurrah. Really ace photo of her waving brilliantly too I think! She’s had a lot of practice though, so not really surprising that she’s nailed it.
So get yourself down there. Don’t forget your barcode #dfyb – and for clarity, that means your parkrun barcode athlete individual identifier. Pesenting an identikit library card for scanning instead will only lead to embarrassment! Yes, that happened. You’d need to be wise indeed to sort that one out after the event though. I mean, strictly speaking you didn’t bring your barcode did you, but if it got scanned, as in this case, because neither runner nor scanner could spot the difference, I’m thinking that might be genuinely exceptional circumstances. Glad I don’t have to decide. Tough call. Still, to be on the safe side, take your parkrun barcode along rather than your old Blockbuster video rental card or Morrisons loyalty card or whatever. Better safe than sorry.
So in conclusion, thanks lovely Frickley Country parkrun people, you were fab. All of you, in every parkrunning manifestation from hi-vis clad to walk run joggers. Not going to lie, my favourite bit was finding you’d moved the finish line in my favour, but that was really the cherry on the cake, because so much to recommend you. Much parkrun parkfun to be had indeed!
So happy parkrunning ’til next time, hope to be back to see you again soon.
🙂
For all my parkrun related posts click here. Or don’t. It’s up to you. You’ll need to scroll down for older entries though
Running Scared 
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