Salcey Forest parkrun where unicorns prance and the sun always shines.

Up until today I thought the only parkrun with a naturalised endemic unicorn population was Bushy parkrun. The latter parkrun also having deer – including spectacular stags, parakeets and skylarks in season. And also potential celebrity sightings of PSH amongst others. However, every parkrun day provides edutainment, as well as community coffee opportunities, and now I know better. Salcey Forest parkrun has to have them. FACT! As you pass through the forest on the parkrun route, the cathedral like trees tower overhead and with brilliant sunshine above (sunshine guaranteed at this parkrun I feel sure), shafts of light penetrate the canopy to illuminate gorgeous glades and dancing wildflower heads at the sides of the trails. Everywhere you look there are inviting paths, massive fallen trunks and intriguing constructions and signs to lure you off the beaten track and further and further into the woods.

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Honestly, you can quite see how it children in fairy tales are want to wander ever deeper into such environments. In fairy tales, granted, it doesn’t always end well, but here, the forest surrounds are properly gorgeous. Ferns and mosses and wildflower borders abound, this has to be optimum unicorn habitat. Also, the forest feels vast, unicorns need quite a bit of space, and seem able to share it with Zog, ancient ‘druid oaks’ and an abundance of wildlife too. They are shy though, and whilst I’d properly swear I got a glimpse of a flying mane or flicking tail out of the very corner of my eye, catching just the briefest of glimpses as the impressive creatures galloped light-footed through some distant glade, There is one in this picture for sure, can you see it?

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Wait, you aren’t quite convinced. Sigh. Well, I’m ahead of you. I accept you may demand more physical proof. Well, dear reader, I have it!Not me to be fair, but the high vis hero who was on finish tokens duty at the parkrun today. It seems one of her duties as a volunteer is to clear the finish funnel of unicorn scat. It’s basic health and safety, as even if it lands ins attractively rainbow coloured droppings, it is still a potential slip hazard for sprinting parkrunners. If you don’t believe me, check out the volunteer grid. I think it’s recorded as ‘other’ on the roster and isn’t actually credited as ‘Unicorn Poop Scooper’ so an element of trust there I concede. Though it should be obvs, they have ‘Car Park Marshal’ after all, I guess it’s like the ‘Fluffy the Emu Wrangler’ role at Nambour parkrun Australia, a bit too niche to have as an option on the drop down menu for all events, but very real all the same.

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I think we can all agree that animal scat is a good indicator of animal populations in wildlife surveys, so why not believe the evidence of your eyes and check out the massive pile of unicorn poo that the volunteer collected. So much, that she was able to fashion it into an improvised stool (pun intended) so she could carry out her role seated and take home the bounty to put on her roses later. If you think ordinary horse manure is good for roses you should see the impact of unicorn droppings. It makes your roses rainbow coloured with glitter tipped petals, and they smell just divine. Take a bucket and some rubber gloves with you next time you are in the forest and you too might get lucky. Food for thought, I’m sure you’ll agree. Our finish token giver outer was a tad optimistic about the quantities unicorns produce though, she was never going to fill that whole bag for life to be fair, but fair play to her for her optimistic outlook, always a joy to behold. I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell her she’d smeared a bit of unicorn poo on her leggings though, I decided against, I mean she probably knew already, and if she didn’t well, why make her feel all self conscious about something she could do nothing about? Precisely.

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Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s just that I was very excited about the unicorns, and if you take nothing else away from this account of Salcey Forest, remember that. Remember it, but also, don’t tell too many people, don’t want them getting spooked needlessly.

As my regular reader, you will know I always agonise over where to go for my parkrun fix. Needing places I can reach from Sheffield and that are parkwalker friendly, with nearby parking to limit how far I have to walk in addition to the completing the 5k. This week though, I was spared endless angst and indecision because the event choice was obvious. My EWFM and now parkrunner friend too had confirmed that she would confirmed by all to be an absolute cow by the end of her parkrun today and who would want to miss that? She’d chosen Salcey Forest parkrun as it is reachable for parkrunning friends coming down from oop norf or up from darn sarf. I would come from Sheffield, she would come from Londonshire, we could meet sort of in the middle. Fortunately, looking at the official Salcey Forest parkrun website blah de blah it did seem to also be a parkrun with all the things. Parking, cafe, forest etc.

The course is excitingly all one lap too:

Course Description – The course consists of one lap in a clockwise direction on a mixture of gravel and trail through the forest. The start and finish are close to the main car park, café and toilets. Trail shoes are advised during winter months or after periods of rain. Due to the terrain the course is only suitable for purpose built running buggies.

Facilities – Early bird parking (between 8am-11am) costs £3.

and it looks like this:

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So easy to remember as it looks a bit like, a bit like…. actually, I have no idea what it looks like. The wrong trousers half heartedly drawn as in Wallace and Gromit? Does that help at all? Or the tail end of a cut in half mermaid, washed up on a beach and partially decomposed? Possibly not, but the thing is there are lots of smiling marshals and where marshals fear to tread there are lots of cones so no worries.

Oh actually, I think it’s worth giving some blah de blah from the Salcey Forest official website too. There’s loads to do there, and this write up won’t do even the parkrun justice, let alone the whole Forest.

‘Located only 7 miles from the centre of Northampton, Salcey Forest is an oasis of nature and history, This magnificent woodland has many miles of ancient wood banks, building remains and ancient trees. The ‘druids’, or veteran oaks, are rare and amazing wildlife habitats, and some of the old oaks are over 600 years old. See what you can spot on your visit to the medieval royal hunting forest. We’ve got endless walking trails, a family cycling trail, adventure play area and even an onsite café selling tasty homemade meals and cakes in a warm, friendly environment.]

You need to go and explore for yourself really, look out for Zog trails too. Unicorns and speedy parkruns aren’t the only things flying around Salcey Forest of a Saturday morning you’ll find.

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What’s that. You are worried about me calling my friend a complete cow? But she was going to be, she now is! It’s true! She is definitively a complete cow now and she is owning it. The thing is, some parkrunners like to get out and about and visit different parkrun venues. It’s a great way to meet up with parkrunning buddies you’ve acquired on line over the years and also to see parts of the country you might never otherwise visit. Welcome to the parallel universe that is parkrun tourism. It was years before I twigged that this was a thing and fun too. My EWFM has been a faster learner than I, embracing parkrun tourism from the off. So it is today was the occasion of her fiftieth different parkrun venue. I know, exciting! The first parkrunner to complete 100 distinct parkrun venues was somebody by the name of Cowell, so to complete one hundred different parkruns is to complete your Cowell. To complete fifty, i.e. half of them – are you getting this now – is to complete the Cow. See what they’ve done there. I know, clever. So it was, should my parkrunning buddy moove round the course as plan she’d be a confirmed cow at the end of it. This, naturally enough, was a cause for celebration. Cup cakes would be lovingly baked and brought; companions would be in attendance, many would gather. Hurrah!

There was some pre event angst, as in the lead up to the event it was looking low on volunteers. Many parkruns have seemed to struggle to get enough high vis heroes for their events post pandemic. It’s hard not to find this dispiriting at times. A fair few have had to cancel, or gone ahead and faced grumbling from participants when things don’t go smoothly because they are too short of help to have everything run smoothly. Case in point Cardiff parkrun last week which someone attended and then complained because the finish funnel was disorganised, when the poor team at Cardiff had been begging for volunteers all week, considered cancelling, then gamely went ahead with very limited help only to get grief from a parktouristing visitor. Not a good look. It’s easy to see why the most dedicated of core team volunteers end up getting burnt out. Anyway, a gracious call for more help went out. Nice work on their social media channels I think we can all agree

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As a fair few of us wanted to make sure the bovine transfiguration came to pass satisfactorily, it meant a number of us would be gracing the forest. Word went round and hands went up, various people messaged in to offer their services. This included the parents of a parkrunning friend who resides in Germany. Producer of the legendary entertainment that is the Quarantine Quiz. A bilingual quiz for and by parkrunners, compered by fancy dress sporting and 3d printing genius it is worth a watch. Grew out of the pandemic and endures. The questions have nothing whatsoever to do with parkrun, but are posed by parkrunners, often from parkrun destinations, check it out. Like and subscribe etc. The producer’s mum and dad reside in Northampton, but a stone’s throw(ish) from this parkrun and they too would come along. One to complete the parkrun and one to volunteer, hurrah! The rota looked a lot healthier, it would be cow a go go. Which is good in this context. New experiences for some, possibly for us all, as I think the whole cow herd were newbies to the venue. How exciting!

I lay awake all night largely due to usual insomnia, but also pimped up by worrying about over sleeping and a dash of being excited about how the day would unfold. When the alarm went off at stupid o’clock I was already wide awake, and had been listening to an increasingly rowdy dawn chorus through my open bedroom window for some time. Up and out before I had a chance to overthink the small hours issue. It was promising to be a bright sunshiney day, but with some early morning fog on the way down, that soon burnt away. The drive from Sheffield was over long, but straightforward. One diversion and had to pass one horrific looking accident on the motorway going down to Northampton. The sort that makes you shudder to behold.

I arrived in good time, and the venue is easy to find being well sign posted. I parked up near the cafe and visitors’ centre area but in fact you can park a bit closer to the start if you arrive fractionally later and have the car park marshal in situ to wave you on. It makes little odds though, either way. I was confused by the parking metres. The first one I approached was coins only, then if you go round the block there was one that took cards. A further machine at the car park nearest the start required you to download a parking app WHICH IS REALLY ANNOYING, though you can also pay by phoning I think. It’s just three pounds for Saturday morning early bird, which is fair enough, and takes you to 11, which allows for a certain amount of post parkrun faffing but possibly not enough for all. The other big win, is lots of loos for the mandatory for me precautionary pee. I was especially grateful for this after the long drive. Apart from the fact that I wasn’t clever enough to operate the taps – but nor was the other woman availing herself of the facilities to be fair – it was in good order. Spoiler alert, we worked it out between us, but I still think the water pressure wasn’t reaching all the sinks. Leave enough time to fathom the plumbing before hand is my advice, otherwise you might be waving your hand in entirely the wrong dimension.

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Parked up, I asked the kindly marshal for directions to the start, which she patiently gave. As I glanced in the direction she was pointing in I could see a sea of parkrun pink, and all was well with the world. I ambled towards the parkrun posse, passed the ‘caution runners’ signs and through the metaphorical looking glass into the parallel parkrun universe for a morning of forest bathing, cakery and chootling (chatting and pootling) what’s not to like?

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One of our number was to be parkwalking, but alas, had woken practically blinded by an insect bite overnight. Disaster! I had brought jam jars all the way from Sheffield to pass on to her! Oh, and it looked both spectacular and agonising. Have you ever seen any of those reality TV shows about botched cosmetic surgery? It was the before correction picture, not gonna lie. Anyway, I went to ask the RD if anyone was needed given she couldn’t come and I’d be walking anyway. Actually, someone else had already volunteered to fill the breach, but I could too, albeit the blue high vis – which everyone knows is the most flattering of the options available – had already been bagsied, so I’d have to improvise with the pink. No great hardship there, in fact a win, as in honesty I am the slowest participant anyway, so ended up flying the walking flag by valiantly walking and talking – twalking – round with my EWFM cow bestie, but hey, making walking visible at parkrun is still a desirable outcome isn’t it, so all the yays,.

High vis donned, there was the important work of pre parkrun photo taking. It has to be done. Here are some (of many) offerings, have you spotted the nearly a complete cow participant yet. It’s like looking for unicorns in the ancient forests, you think it will be impossible, but once you get your eye in, there’s no mistaking it. We were in for a devil of a time!

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Once we’d done all our meeting and greeting, and round one of our photo taking, a call went up for the first timers’ welcome. A tourist was undertaking this role too. I was a bit dubious about how easy this would be for a tourist, but turns out, she has completed the course previously, and is also a hugely experienced volunteer so of course it was a splendid welcome and intro. The route is apparently basically left, right, right, left, right again, left right etc. …. or, just keep faith in the marshals! They are at every single turn point bar one, where there is an embarrassment of riches cones wise so really no getting lost unless you charge ever onward pushing marshals aside in your hurry to pb. It was a jolly mood. There were milestones and tourists – including from Cardiff actually, now I come to think of it, and a pleasing scattering of first time everers. An attentive semi circle of new to Salcey Forest tourists listened and then moved aside so the first time everers, of whom I think there were 8, could have a separate intro to how it all worked.

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It was a tight ship, and as soon as the first timers’ had been satisfactorily briefed and welcomed, it was time for the Run Director’s briefing. Again, this was very positive, and very thorough. Tourists were welcomed. The wannabee cow was identified for their very own round of applause, milestone runners and volunteers were acknowledged and applauded. The RDs canine companion was an enthusiastic participant and so was led away to be less distracting, were they made their disappointment evident. Being separated from your companion human is a tough call it seems.

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As the path can be a bit narrow (actually it’s a great width) the RD called people forward to make their way down to the start in order of expected times. Pleasingly, those of us expected to complete in over 35 minutes were referred to as ‘the elite runners’. We elites liked this a lot.

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So parkrunners ready, timers ready, and then awf we went, the finish team watching us disappear down the arch of trees into the land of moss and stone and unicorn and ancient oaks. The timers moving back to the finish funnel area as we departed on our 5k romp round the trails.

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Actually, that photo might have been towards the end of the parkrun with parkrunners returning triumphant, but a bit of artistic licence between parkrunning friends is allowable I’m sure. Awf we went. I slotted in at the back with my nearly a cow companion. It’s nice having a cow to walk alongside, they are soothing to be around. No wonder Jack had such a hard time parting with his cow. Personally, I wouldn’t have sold my cow for any number of beans, not even magic ones. A cow is for life not just for Christmas.

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As it is a one lap course, and me and the nearly cow were mooving slowly at a walk, very quickly the other parkrunners streamed ahead out of sight. You literally don’t see them again, well not until after you’ve finished, I don’t mean they were abducted by aliens and transported to a parallel universe as soon as they got round the first corner, that would be silly. Rather, they did their thing and we did ours. Some even managed en route selfies, hurrah!

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It was an astonishing walk. The forest is truly breathtaking, and although at intervals there were cheery marshals to point us on our way, there seemed to be no-one else about at all. A distant dog walker maybe – the aforementioned unicorns, obvs, but basically we had this wonderland all to ourselves. We were pretty much right at the back, with just the tailwalker behind sweeping the course. He was collecting cones and things as other marshals stood down, including I imagine, winding up bunting, and was a little distance behind. This meant we walked and talked at our own pace, and got to really appreciate our surroundings. Never having been before, I can only assume the forest is always this lovely, with sunshine and every variation on green in the colour spectrum you can possibly imagine and then some more. It smelt nice too. So did my cowmpanion, only she said it can’t have been her smelling all that fragrant in truth, so it must have been her laundry detergent. I do really, really like the smell of freshly washed, air dried laundry. Right up there with coffee and toast in the morning.

Here are some of the friendly marshals who nailed the directional pointing, photogenic posing and generic cheeriness on the way round. It was a good day for standing in a pool of forest sunshine. There would have been quite a gap between us and the last of the parkrunners, but I choose to think waiting for us would have been an opportunity for quiet meditation and listening out for all the sounds of the forest. An exercise in mindfulness.

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And here are some of the many sights we saw or passed en route.

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It was very, very hard to exercise the necessary self discipline to stay on track, with so many intriguing possibilities luring us away. We may have experimented with the see saw to see if it would see saw. It did! Quite spectacularly. I was quite relieved I’d delegated the testing responsibilities to my more able bodied cowmpanion. She aced it. Could maybe have done a bit more of triumphant arms flung outwards on the dismount, but no face planting or obvious injury, so definitely an 8 at least. Well done.

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Twalking is most therapeutic, meditative even. Consequently we were caught unawares when the finish funnel ‘suddenly’ appeared. Fortunately, the team were on high alert in cheery readiness for us. Triumphant we entered the funnel, clicked in, hurrah!

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Shot out of the funnel, we were scanned, and then there was the important business of the cake. I did tell you, cakes had been baked and bought, and the master baker had kept them all safely til the cow came home, so she could break open the Tupperware and dispense her offerings with smiles. They were vegan cakes, cow coloured (well sort of, cows come in many colours after all) and some were gluten free and others presumably had extra gluten. All dietary needs catered for. Happy smiles in abundance as the offerings were passed around. Hurrah!

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Assisted by the sugar high, the business of uploading scan files, gathering up tokens to be sorted and taking down of the funnel was soon underway.

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Crucially though, we managed to pose for the mandatory group shot with the selfie frame before it was also packed away.

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Next stop was the cafe, but en route we passed the most brilliant sign of a load of children sitting on a log, eating cake. I was keen to do a group reconstruction, as we had some parkrunners who would have been an absolute shoo in for some of those casting opportunities. Next time maybe, today, the pull of the prospect of coffee was too strong.

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We left the regulars doing their final tidying up – we did offer to help, but they had it nailed without us, and you know what, it’s not really helping unless you are actually being helpful, too many cooks and all that. We called our thanks though, and they looked happy in their labours. Not just happy to wave us off I think. There had been cake after all. parkrun was always about the cake wasn’t it. Oh no, wait, coffee, always about the coffee. Same thing though really.

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We arrived at the coffee, via a little celebratory outdoor cake moment. The cafe very kindly allowed us to take our cakes inside – we did buy toasties various and drinks and things. Point of information, the only downside of this whole morning, but has to be declared because of the mismatch between expectations generated by the general ambience of the place, presentation of hot beverages and the crushing reality of what was served up, this parkrun venue had quite possibly the worst coffee I’ve ever had at a parkrun apart from at Doncaster parkrun At Doncaster I actually left the coffee undrunk, the coffee here I did consume, but it got nastier with every mouthful. Shame, as the cafe was ace for customer service, cleanliness etc, and vegan options. Bit limited for breakfast choices but fundamentally fine. I digress, we need more pictures, here is the outsidey part:

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Do you like the card with the cow on it? I bought it specially moo-ns ago (see what I did there? Quite proud of that one), in anticipation of just this occasion, very proud of it. Also, quite relieved, as when the time finally came to use it, I thought I’d lost it, there was much late night rummaging I don’t mind admitting!

Then into the cafe, where two of our number had volunteered for token sorting. One token at least had gone awol 86 from memory, but what was really odd, was that the spare number 86 was also missing, and the spare for the spare, and the spare for that one too. How bizarre. A repeat offender? Some secret society’s initiation ceremony, sacred to unicorns or Zog? We may never know. I must google ‘what is so great about the number 86’ to see if I can find out why… ok, I have, it’s associated with all your problems vanishing, which is clearly nonsense, as it’s a big problem for event teams if token magpies are present at an event. Also, weirdly, I’ve not come across this phenomenon before anywhere else. Strange, but true!

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The Freyne Club? That’s for 250 different venues. I know, very impressive. I got to join in on venue number 249 at Millhouses parkrun. There’s a story about that – another time maybe…

And then that was that. I would have stayed a bit longer, but suddenly discovered it isn’t three hours parking on a Saturday morning it’s until 11 a.m. and at 10.59 a.m. I realised if I lingered I’d turn into a pumpkin or something, also needed to get back really, guests checking out and always wise to be home to safety before my leg starts operating either independently or not at all. It has a (deranged) mind of its own at times. Still, one should always leave one’s audience wanting more, isn’t that the saying? Salcey Forest has certainly achieved that, definitely one of my favourites. I’ve loved all the forest parkruns I’ve done, there is something calming about them, particularly the more established ones, you get some sense of perspective perhaps, trees can live for centuries, things that seem to matter right now maybe really don’t in the grand scheme of things.

And so I waved goodbye and wended my way home.

Thanks Salcey Forest parkrun, you were fab. Oh, and if you dear reader want their official event report for triangulation purposes, you will find it on their Facebook page here:

And parkrunner twalking buddy, well done for being such a cow. You did yourself proud!

Same again next week somewhere?

In the meantime, if you want to prolong your parkrun fix, you could always browse through all my parkrun related posts here.  Or not.  It’s up to you.  You’ll need to scroll down for older entries though.

Hope you find a forest of your own to bathe in sometime soon. Catch them while you can. Not sure they have as many years left in the future as they have stood for in the past. Maybe if you find a particularly nice tree, take the time to give it an appreciative hug. It will make you feel all nice and warm and squidgy inside. Bits of bark might get down your top and be a bit itchy, and you could end up with some leaf litter in your shoes, but it’s fundamentally grounding, give it a try. Thank me later. You’re welcome.

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PS did I mention the extra fluffy dog? Amazing! A quarter spaniel, three quarters yeti. Nice.

Jolly Jovial Jocular Jubilee parkrun #100

Well, that was most satisfactory.

Jubilee parkrun has been on my vague ‘to do’ list for ages, in honesty, largely because of the alphabet challenge, but also new place to visit, good vibes, in reach of Sheffield, the usual tick list of gloriousness. I picked this week because who wants to go to Norway for their extra parkrun day anyway, bet they don’t get complementary rhubarb at the end, or even rude vegetables I would imagine. Did you know that ‘Rhubarb is technically a vegetable, but is legally considered a fruit. In 1947 a New York court declared rhubarb a fruit because it’s most often cooked as one in the United States’, well it is according to Huffpost, which is good enough for me. Also, today was the occasion of their 100th event, and therefore officially party time. Or would be according to their most recent Facebook post.

Balloons a boon for sure. I do like a pop up parkrun party. I’d get to complete my alphabet, which is officially a thing what’s not to like.

Apart from the stupid o’clock start that is. Having said that, as a chronic insomniac, I’m usually just lying awake wishing I wasn’t, awake that is, so having a purpose to get up for in the small hours is also a boon. I was awake from about 4.00 and there were the most amazingly noisy birds at that time. A couple of owls, though some calls I couldn’t recognise at all, giving way to a rousing dawn chorus. It looked like it was going to be a bright sunshiny day too, hurrah. I headed off up the M1 feeling uncharacteristically cheery. The sun was burning off a deep mist, and it was gorgeous out. Or it was for the first bit, as we got further north it gave way to a less than cheery mizzle and fog, but that’s ok too, because rain is good. I hadn’t checked much in advance beyond a postcode to head to. I read that there was free parking in the town centre too, walking distance from the park, but was hoping I’d get near to the park as I worry about adding on extra walking to a parkrun distance. In fact, as I approached the postcode, I saw signs for free parking in one direction and to the Jubilee Park in the other, so figured it really wasn’t far at all, so parked up. There seemed to be ample parking, though I was a bit confused by the prevalence of royal mail red postal vans, which made me wonder if I’d encroached on their parking. But fear not dear reader, I hadn’t it was fine, it was free, and it was but a very short walk to the park gates, even by my somewhat feeble walking endurance standards.

Here it is, the entrance to the park, oooh, exciting!

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See that sign? More of that later.

But I’m ahead of myself. I’ve been now, but you might not have been, so let’s check out the course blah de blah on the official Jubilee parkrun website, and the map too, which is pretty hilarious.

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The course is at Jubilee Park, Spennymoor. The course is run on a mixture of tarmac paths and grass.

Start at the bottom of the park next to the Villiers Street entrance. Travelling in a clockwise direction, complete 3 full laps plus 1 part lap to finish at the top of the park next to the bowls green. The course is an undulating mixture of grass and paths. Trail shoes may be advisable in the winter. Unfortunately dogs are not allowed at this event.

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OK, that sounds straightforward…. however, it looks like this:-

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which is basically headache inducing. Not even sure if they’ve printed the map the right way up to be fair. Hurrah for marshals, they will be much needed here. A rare benefit of being a walker at parkrun is I don’t have to worry about being a pathfinder on an unfamiliar course, this looks complicated.

In I went, and it was a revelation. This is a pretty bijou park it’s fair to say, a true pocket park, but it was beautifully landscaped. Colourful packed displays of planting in formal beds set off traditional features like a rather fine bandstand. Then there were contemporary additions like a play area, a formal arch for the Jubilee of 2000, though in fact this is Victoria Park not one for Elizabeth II as I’d assumed. There is a skate boarding area, a Victoria train station, all the things! Also, this sign, which amused me…

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It was the reference to no person whilst in the park shall – ‘play unauthorised golf’. Is this a known public disorder offence in these parts. I was very confused. Confused that is, until I stumbled on the in situ crazy golf course. This is genius, and probably merits a trip all on its own. It’s a carefully landscaped area, designed around the ‘accomplishments’ of the Victorian age. I say ‘accomplishments’ but presented as it was, a moment in history for every hole, was genuinely educational, let’s just go with it wasn’t an especially woke time. Kudos to whoever designed this feature though, edutainment at its best, much like parkrun itself!

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This made a bit more sense of the golfing directive. Other directives were also made very clear:

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Fair enough, a lot of work had gone into the planting schemes just look:

But although you could not ‘tread, mosey, hop, trample, step, plod, tiptoe, trot, meander, creep, prance, amble, jog, trudge, march, stomp, toddle, jump, stumble, trod, sprint or walk on the plants, parkrun takes a different view. With the possible exception of trampling (it’s definitely frowned on to mow down other park users or fellow parkrunners as you participate so to go on to trample them altogether would definitely lead to tuts and passive aggressive sighing from fellow parkrunners at the very least) – you can complete a parkrun however you like. Which is lucky for me as I’m definitely a plodder at present.

Despite being a plodder, the park itself invited a bit of pre parkrun exploration. I was super impressed to find cones and signs already in situ, volunteers were also very focused on balloon tying and bunting display. Jazzing it all up joyfully you might say. I helped hugely by holding one end of a strip of bunting to assist in its disentanglement, and then securing it in situ with a bow under the direction of others. Every little helps, hopefully 🙂

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Even more excitingly, some had broken out the bubbles. I know! Epic.

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All looking very promising, but wait, there was more! There was a large set of buildings adjacent to the finish funnel and immaculately manicured bowling green. In it were loos, hurrah. Also clean and ample in number, with one of those automated soap, water hand driers. That in itself is perhaps unremarkable, we are used to such fripperies and indulgences in this decadent age. What was eye catching though was the laser light show as the machine operated. No really, it was quite astonishing, whether this lumiere display was in honour of the 100th parkrun or a regular occurrence I have no idea, you’ll have to go back and check it out for yourself. Prepare yourself to be truly amazed, the wonder of discovery at a new to you parkrun continues to be delivered. Here is a teaser, doesn’t really do it justice, I failed to capture the glitter ball for example, but you should get the gist. What brave new world is this indeed!

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Please don’t tell me I need to get out more, such slights degrade you, not me. Just sayin’

Ablutions completed, I followed the direction of the balloon and sign carrier to locate the start area, which wasn’t too hard to find on account of it being right near the gates you have previously entered.

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The pictures aren’t really capturing the ambience of the park. I admit, my heart sank a bit when I realised it was essentially a four lapper but honestly, the park is so full of little corners of interest, and zig zagging paths there is something to see at every point on the park. Add in balloons and cheering marshals and it’s just as well you get to go round more than once or you’d miss so much of the good stuff. Spring flowers in wildlife areas, formal beds, stone staircases and iron arches, it has it all. Add to this the fact the the event team are on a role with the celebrations and you have it made. They celebrated their flake run (number 99) last week, today is their 100th event (obvs) and then next week they will no doubt have the bunting out all over again for the coronation celebrations, with a name like Jubilee parkun how could they not?

Despite the rarity of the letter ‘J’ in parkrun land, this wasn’t a massive parkrun by any means. Small and perfectly formed. A call went up to welcome first timers, and a group of us duly assembled. Tourists had come from all over, I think from Dorset was the furthest but I lost concentration so might have hallucinated that. Also, I was distracted by the hugely exciting combo of milestone parkrunners. There was an adult on his 100th parkrun, accompanied by a junior on his FIRST EVER parkrun and another junior with a sign on proclaiming his 7th parkrun. This innovation is splendid! Numbers are pretty arbitrary so we should basically celebrate them all, hurrah! Loving the signage, genius. Our official welcomer explained that the purpose of the first timers’ briefing is to make the course sound as complicated as possible. It is really hard to describe to be fair, but when you come to complete it, it does make sense, the magic combo of marshals pointing and cunning cone placement mean it would be really difficult to get lost. This part of the briefing was reassuring. We were also forewarned though that although the park appears pretty flat, there is a bit of a gradient which, in conjunction with the multi-lap routing means you basically run up the same hill 8 times. It’s true, it is deceptive in that respect, good to be warned. Anyway, all very helpful and very jolly, with a backdrop of other volunteers perfecting the event decor. Those numbered balloons won’t hang themselves!

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We were all jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect of our Jubilee Jog or Jeff around. I was mostly jumping on the inside.

Next stop was photo posing, well it was an especially photo worthy occasion. Jolly balloons, jaunty volunteers, a jam packed parkrun awaited us. Here though first are the high vis heroes!

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Aren’t they lovely? Of course they are.

It wasn’t even raining, positively clearing up, despite a bit of a nip in the air earlier. I tried to get the volunteers jump on three for a photo, but it wasn’t really their thing. However, judging by the roar of laughter that went up from alongside in the start funnel behind me I have a strong suspicion the run director may have had a shot at getting airborne, I’d like to have seen that, maybe next time.

Run Director’s briefing followed. It was really good. It covered a bit of the history of how the parkrun started up, which of course I have now almost entirely forgotten. I do know that but for the pandemic they’d have had a lot more parkruns under their name, I have a feeling it’s start was delayed by the whole lockdown thing. There were the usual thanks. The park is exceptionally well maintained, it looked like someone was doing a litter pick and restoring some flowers to beds where they had been rudely ripped up by some ne’er do well the night before even as we gathered. Welcomes to tourists, milestone shout outs. I don’t think anything was missed. Oh – the no dogs thing for this particular parkrun – it is a park rule, and also adults were instructed to keep up with their accompanying juniors. And cake at the end, by the finish. A great incentive to get around. All good. Then the call went out ‘timers ready?’ ‘Yep’ then we were awf!

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And off went all the parkrunners, one marshal scampered balloon laden to her marshal point, and I tucked in towards the back. You start up a gradient, but a chalked sign reminds you to keep going, and then a bubble monitor at the top of the slope guided you onto a grass section to the right, down hill, past daffodils and more bubbles, a veritable bubble path on the way round should you wish it, and then a bit of a cone directed zig and marshal directed zag and back up the hill the other side. It makes perfect sense in the doing, but none whatsoever in the describing of. You’ll just have to jog along and tackle it yourself.

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You soar by a children’s play area, formal planting, the mini golf course, and up to the point where there is a marshal you pass by three times and then on the fourth occasion turn sharply into the finish tunnel. It is important to be able to count to three and remember what your count is as it is a tad disorientating with everyone else also parkrunning around in all directions, harder than you think to count to three sometimes. Fun though. I liked that you passed marshals more than once, though after the first lap some had repositioned themselves to support the finish funnel high japery. Cones remained in situ though, and it was fine to navigate around once everyone was in motion, pretty much always someone to follow.

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There was a good vibe to the parkrun. Passing parkrunners called encouragement, and the volunteers appeared to be genuinely having a ball. Music was playing near the finish area, and at one point I could hear ‘Come On Eileen‘ blaring out from the sound system whilst Team Bubble were giving a stirring rendition of ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles‘ I do appreciate a bit of gusto at a parkrun and Jubilee was jam-packed with jollity and enthusiasm along those lines! I tried to take photos on the way round, a smorgasbord follows, including some taken by others on the day too. I’ve borrowed from the Jubilee parkrun facebook page, I’m sure they won’t mind too much.

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Maybe the pictures are in fact beginning to put you in the picture. I’m hoping so.

As I was lapped I suddenly spotted some familiar merchandise – a buff linked to the With Me Now podcast – About parkrun passion by passionate parkrunners. It’s a weekly podcast about all things parkrun, and has just had its 250th pod, which is no mean feat. It’s worth a listen if you like to keep up with parkrun related news and hear about other parkruns. More importantly, it has a community of listeners who got to know one another especially during the lockdown period when the With Me Now team astonishingly, managed to do pretty much daily live streams just to keep people connected. That could be a bit of parkrunpedia (history of particular parkrun courses); parkrun pictionary; parkrun pets; parkrun people; allsorts really. It’s led to really strong friendships and much sharing of parkrun tourism adventuring now we are free to go out and about. Give it a listen, but in the meantime, shout outs to these fellow podders, even though I hadn’t met them before, I feel we belong to the same tribe! ‘Dolly or Bev!’ I don’t often see With Me Now merchandise in the wild!

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Oh, and I also thought the floral planting display looked a bit like the With Me Now logo, so that seemed especially apt too.

Where was I, oh yes, making my way around the course. It did feel like more uphill than down, which I know can’t be true but well, just saying. I did most of the first three laps in limbo land between the parkwalker ahead and the tailwalker behind, but for the final one I dropped back a little to join the tailwalker. It was nice to chat to a key member of the team who takes pride in welcoming walkers every week. Accompanying us was someone who used to live in Spennymoor but moved away and was back visiting, so I was in safe hands. The final loop went quickly. We passed the gathered parkrunners who had already finished and were having a nice social parkrun party. Marshals stood down as we passed, and cones were collected and balloons gathered in. The last of the bubbles distributed, and the final parkrunners flew home down the finish funnel.

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Eventually, I joined them, hurrah!

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It’s weird that just as parkruns always surprise me by starting, they equally catch me out at the finish. It all feels a bit abrupt. You’ve made friends with lovely people and lost your heart a bit to a new lovely place and then it’s all over, no sooner seemingly than it has begun! Oh well, timed in, scanned, and all done…

except it wasn’t! This was the parkrun that keeps on giving. More surprises.

The biggest surprise was finding there was still cake and flakes and sweets aplenty for us final finishers. Also more 100 decorations AND (and I really like this idea) a visitors book too! Beautifully made, that I was encouraged to sign, and duly did. Others had too. I like this innovation, I’ve not really come across it, and it’s hard to implement I think, but was done well here. But dear reader, there’s more! Rhubarb! Lots of rhubarb! An abundance harvested from one of the core team’s allotments. I was encouraged to help myself and did so with enthusiasm. I don’t know if there is always such rich pickings, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were.

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There isn’t a cafe on site unfortunately, though I was encouraged to join them at another cafe, which I couldn’t because I needed to get back, and really was feeling it a bit, it is the driving as much as the walking unfortunately, and I was flagging. However, for future reference fellow tourists, on the first Saturday of the month, there is a more deliberate get together at the cafe linked to a nearby Methodist Church, so for any massive parkfaffers out there, that’s probably the Saturday to choose.

Having said that, I think I chose pretty well, I was a jammy parkrunner to jog up to Jubilee parkrun for jovial celebrations today!

Thank you all for the lovely welcome and jolly Jubilee park. Hope our parkrun paths cross again soon. Hope you have a good one next week- how could you not! I shall be marking the coronation celebrations by eating my body weight in rhubarb crumble, it’s going to be grand. #loverhubarb They really should make more of this availability of rhubarb as Jubilee parkrun’s USP, or maybe it is just a merry Jubilee Jape on their part, to keep the element of surprise? I hope I haven’t spoilt it.

Thanks for staying with me, hope you’ve had jolly japes wherever you went even if you didn’t get to have a full on personalised bubble bathing experience on the way round. I’m sure wherever you were was jolly nice in its own way.

Usual reminder you can browse through all my parkrun related posts here.  Or not.  It’s up to you.  You’ll need to scroll down for older entries though.

May you too stumble on a parkrun with surprise offering at the finish, I’m delighted with my rhubarb, but whatever floats your boat. Every parkrun will give you the warm glow of a shared experience and memories to treasure, even if it cannot guarantee to deliver on a fruit fix every time. Still not a bad return for our free, weekly, timed fix.

Same time next week then, at a parkrun near you? Good oh. 🙂

From Tu tu to ta da! Sashaying round Sutcliffe parkrun #86

It is arbitrary I know, but three hundred. That’s loads of parkrunning around, even if latterly it’s been more of a solitary shuffle than an athletic sprint. Surely worth celebrating. I know it’s not an official milestone, no t-shirts, congratulatory telegrams or even cake, but even if not going down the lines of celebrating as such, marking with something memorable at least would surely be in order. No idea how many parkruns I have left in me, so good to lay down a marker at this point. I wondered initially about going with a theme like The 300 Spartans, but that’s probably been done before and maybe a bit low key for such a mighty achievement. Also, the whole ‘tonight we dine in hell‘ thing for the more recent version is somewhat off message for parkrun methinks. It’s supposed to be fun for all remember. Also, the spartan theme is somewhat male centric, I’m tired of that. I’ve been trying to get parkrun to look at the changing the listings for each individual parkruns’ top 500 fasted finishers to a top 500 percentage age grading instead. Or better yet ditch it altogether. I think it’s problematic just listing those parkrunners with the 500 fastest finish times for loads of reasons. Firstly, it goes against the whole ethos of it not being a race, secondly, fastest finish times miss the subtleties of differentiations by age and gender. This matters, because the longer a parkrun has been around for, and the more participants attend, the more women are erased from that listing. Because the average male can run faster than the average female, inevitably female participants are squeezed out. It might be unconscious gender bias, but it’s a neat little example of everyday sexism. For example, if you go to the listings for Bushy parkrun fastest 500 today, there are just 13 females listed in that tally of 500. Yet, the age graded record is apparently ‘Age graded record: Jane DAVIES – 100.23% 21:30 – Event 645 (24 Sep 2016)’ She doesn’t even get onto the fastest 500 list at all. That seems wrong. In addition, in a time when parkrun are aiming to be more inclusive for walkers and celebrating therefore slower average finish times, it’s a total distortion or at least misrepresentation of parkrun’s proclaimed values. I really don’t get it. And yes, I have raised it, every year for the past three years. It’s been acknowledged as anomaly, but yet it remains. It grates especially on international women’s day. I’m feeling especially hurrumphy about it at the moment. Nope, I can do better that having 300 spartan soldiers to mark the occasion of my 300th parkrun. No harm in having a little peek at the film posters again though, for old times sake. Yep, posters look very much like the gender composition of the 300 fastest finishers at Bushy parkrun, but with fewer visible milestone tees and rather more shield bearing and helmet sporting. I can do better than this. Though invincible flying wedges do sound sort of fun to hang about with if I’m completely transparent about my feelings on this front. Even more so if they were invisible, which is how I first read the poster. Oh well.

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I looked around at other celebratory rituals, and thought maybe something on the lines of the forthcoming Coronation Procession might be more appropriate, but closer scrutiny seems to suggest it’s the King what does the processing, and although he has a lovely carriage and a crown and everything, I thought maybe I’d rather other people did the processing past and I got to watch it all. I did like the dressing up ideas though, and the making a weekend of it. Obvs there’d need to be a parkrun involved. I had hoped to make it to Somerdale parkrun for their curly wurly, that would have been something extra memorable. However, that was just a drive to far, so reset. There must be something I could do…

I know! How about a spontaneous demonstration of adoration in the form of a procession of 48 thousand runners streaming by waving and so on. That would be grand. The backdrop of London would do, make it the Sunday, so time for people to travel down and get organised, and I’d stay with a friend and we could do a London parkrun the day before. Lovely, ’twas a plan! And as for dressing up, well, parkrunday was the twenty second, so that’s 22 which is two two, which is tu tu, presto, parkrun tu tu day, it’s a thing! Yay, loads of people would don tutus, it was but a short leap of the imagination to presume they would all be doing so for me, the parkrun world over. This is how to do it! Check out the event report for Neckarufer parkrun if you don’t believe me! Viele tutus indeed!

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Saturday tu tu parkrun, Sunday 48 thousand 599 people processing past, perfect way to make the weekend a memorable one, hurrah! But which parkrun to choose.

We were originally going to cavort round Catford parkrun, my parkrun buddy and London host being in search of seas for her seven Cs and an R parkrun Pirate Challenge (try saying it out loud). However, we had to set sail elsewhere as, turns out, this was cancelled due to Eid celebrations in Mountsfield park. Not to worry, plenty others to choose from. From Cats to Dogs. We considered Barking parkrun, but I’m a slow walker at the moment, and there were no parkwalkers on the volunteer roster for any week, so that raised a doubt about whether or not they would be welcoming to non runners. Our gaze went to Super Sutcliffe parkrun instead. Oh look, three tailwalkers and two parkwalkers, that looked more promising. A Sunny Sutcliffe Saunter for me it would be! Armed with tutus away we would go.

It was a short drive, lengthened only by having to stop to see if we were going the right way, we were. It turned out to be a fine choice of venue. Loaaaaads of parking, always a good start, and adjacent to an enormous leisure centre which meant there were actual loos. Bonus, their was a unisex queue for the four cubicles available for use, so this kept everything flowing so to speak, and there wasn’t that frustration of having a gazillion women queueing for their designated loos whilst men whizzed on through so to speak. Talking of keeping everything flowing, how about this for dedication to a cause:

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I know tu tu impressive!

Still, I’m jumping ahead, let’s take a moment to look at the official Sutcliffe parkrun website blah de blah:

The course is in Sutcliffe Park Nature Reserve, London

Three laps on a mixture of tarmac and gravel round the perimeter of the Nature Reserve. The start and finish are close to the entrance to the Sports Centre and the main car park.

ooooo kaaaaay, fairly minimalist description, though I’m liking the reference to a Nature Reserve. The route looks like this:

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A fairly bijoux park perhaps, but you can be small yet perfectly formed.

We arrived, we spotted the funnel and the cheery volunteers assembling. We paused for our obligatory tutu shot. Spotted the bucket slalom course and signage various. There was a very fine tree that was a bit of a focal point, not dissimilar to the Bushy parkrun tree, which apparently is not the tree on the parkrun logo as such, but may as well be. Trees are fabulous are they not? Handy too. Rhetorical question by the way, yes they are!

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The tree had a handy course map tied up to it. In a nod to nerds, they had embraced the technological innovation of the what3words app, and included this on their map. Guess what? Nope you won’t be able to guess, it’s too hard and also too brilliant, the what three words for this course appear to be three.identical.laps!!!!! I know what are the chances. Properly amazing!

Only not really though obvs. But for your edification and merriment, the actual location of ‘three.identical.laps’ is in fact

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not in existence, the nearest approximation being tree.identical.labs, but I’ll take that. It is a three metre square that is so remote it is in the middle of unchartered territory in Western Australia, amusingly nearish (relatively speaking) to a place called jigalong, which I now wish to go visit. If you are into your Nelson numbers this might be a good destination to seek out. The registered population of this remote aboriginal community is apparently 333, approximately, or it was for the census in 2016. I suppose if you went you’d ruin the maths of it anyway, but quirky observation nevertheless. Little things as they say, I know, well it pleases me, and I’m celebrating.

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Anyway, we didn’t need to jigalong to Western Australia because we had already joggedalong to Sutcliffe park. And very fine it was looking too. I never tire of the new places parkrun takes me too, corners of the country I might never have otherwise had cause to visit. This was all tu tu exciting!

We indulged in a little pre parkrun pootling. Examining the tree – which seemed also to serve as a place to leave bags, and availing ourselves of the facilities. After a little while a shout went up for the first timers’ welcome, which was also to take place below the sheltering branches of the lovely tree. But, in a dramatic twist, no sooner had the clarion call for assembly gone up, and a high vis hero started to move towards the tree, a shout went up and another volunteer, with the hugest hound ever, sprang into view. For ’twas she who was to deliver the briefing, working most efficiently to ‘just in time’ principles. Soon an attentive and enthusiastic crowd of first timers surrounded her, including, impressively, some first time everers. A few claimed to have come for the London Marathon. I didn’t want to let on that I knew this was just a cover story for those who were to process past me the following day, but was happy to feign ignorance so they could maintain the illusion of it all being a huge surprise. I would need to stay up late tonight practising my waving, but I’m sure I’d nail it.

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A fine welcome it was too. The course was described in loving terms. Three times round the tree, turns out, those cones around it aren’t just to mark out the space, but also part of the course. A turn around point, that you go round three times, pretty much like Somerdale pavilion parkrun Curly Wurly after all! Hurrah! Oh and it’s a nature reserve so there may be ducks and things and there is absolutely definitively an avenue with cherry blossom that has come out especially for us. Wow, this I was not expecting. Hurrah.

First timers’ welcome done and dusted, a bit more ambling, and then we were called together by the Run Director. The numbers were greater than usual apparently, partly by Lucy 300 cheerers or ‘London Marathon Participants’ wink wink; and partly because of displaced people from nearby Catford. Plenty of regulars too though, and a cheery atmosphere despite a slightly overcast day.

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and then we were all at the start and set awf! I did my now usual of watching the runners depart before slotting in at the back. What a merry band of parkrunners they were too. A vision of loveliness, their collective athleticism matched only by their collective positivity and goodcheer!

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Disappointingly few had got the memo about mandatory tu tu wearing, but maybe they were all too focused on preparations for the morrow. Fair enough. You have to respect the right of everyone to participate in parkrun in their own way, them’s the rules.

This is a three lapper course, and a very pretty one at that. It’s quite a teeny park really, and if you look inwards there seems to be rich habitat for wildlife and if you look outwards you can see tower blocks that surround the green space. Because it’s pretty compact, you can see the other parkrunners ahead of you at first if you are slower, and later on behind you as they come up to lap you, and then ahead of you again once they’ve passed. I got lapped more than once by some, so plenty of opportunity for ‘hellos’ and mutually supportive acknowledgements.

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The first lap I did solo, pausing to acknowledge marshals as I passed. Hurrah for the high vis heroes, who were universally chilled and cheery as well as often cheering which is always a parkrun win. Aren’t they all gawgeous! And just like quality street chocolates, each one is someone’s favourite, personally, I can’t put a barcode to choose between them. The loveliest marshal is always the one you have seen or interacted with most recently.

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At some point I fell into step with the parkwalkers, briefly. One said ‘I have to ask this, why the tu tu?’ I explained about it being a 22 day so a 22 parkrun. The other parkwalker asked ‘well, does that mean you’d wear a tu tu on the 22nd if it was a work day as well. Dear reader, I had never previously considered this possibility, but it makes perfect sense! Genius even. ‘I’m going to say yes to that’ I replied, enigmatically, because honestly I think I should. Though could be tricky if I was filming a period drama say, but I daresay there would be a work around, either by channeling my inner tu tu, or by recognising work is so thin and far between anway, it’s not too likely to be an issue. Good shout though. They pulled ahead as I slowed. I’m so over this walking thing. I start reasonably perky, but as I progress, I get slower and slower. I feel a need to point out that although I like taking photos en route, it is also partly a masking/ coping strategy as I have to keep stopping. I’m heart broken by my physical limitation it’s not fair, and although in some ways it makes life easier having a hidden disability, in other ways it makes it harder because I feel so judged and misunderstood at times. Some people who try to be encouraging suggesting you ‘just try a little run’ it’s well meant but jars. I know my limitations, and in honesty walking the distance at an even pace and without a walking aid is challenge enough for me for now.

As you get further round the course, we came upon the cherry blossom avenue. Oh wow, this is properly amazing. We picked absolutely the best weekend to do this course for blossom appreciation purposes. It arched over the runners and was properly gorgeous. I tried to take some pics, but not sure they quite do the sight justice.

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After dancing down the avenue, you emerge and you swerve round toward the finish area, which is also the start area, only the opposite direction and then you do a u-turn around the tree, a sort of looping the loop bit. Like I said, very much like I imagine the Curly Wurly of Somerdale Pavilion parkrun to be, only with possibly better visibility for this weekend at least. Then there is a brief contraflow as you head back out again. Like this:

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Did you spot what I did there, I know, sneaky. parkrun pranking you, but you were too smart for me I bet…

I was lapped by some I knew and some I knew friends of friends of. ‘Dolly or Bev’ SURPRISE, I was late with my ‘arbitrary’ which was ironic, as this was after all my very much arbitrary parkrun number, I should have been more on it. Oh well, good to have parkrun friends with me now… I’ll nail it one day.

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I was slowing for the third lap, and ended up with one of the tailwalkers keeping me company. I learned a bit more about the space. Turns out, this used to be football pitches, but just kept flooding massively, so the powers that be gave up trying to hold back the tide and rather embraced it. Now there is a lake and a fenced platform that seems to be quite a distance from it is actually perfectly placed for when it rains as the water level really does come up that high. This means the green space provides excellent habitat, and presumably is protected by dint of the water levels, from being built on, hurrah. Green spaces are at such a premium in urban environments, and this one is a corker.

Round we went. I learned that just at the start of the cherry blossom avenue is a marshal spot where often a tambourine is flourished with aplomb. Today the aplomb was clapping themed, but none the worse for that. About half way round the final lap, my parkrun companions came back to join me for some of the route. We admired the sights together. The tail walker collected cones in our wake. All good.

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As we just came round in sight of the final corner lined with tree stumps towards the finish a volunteer was already removing cones ahead of us. This did make my heart sink somewhat, not gonna lie. They were cheery enough calling out ‘I just got impatient and I’m on course close down so thought I’d start’. I get that, I really do, but I hadn’t finished so… I totally understand it’s not meant to make you feel unwelcome as a walker, but it did make me cringe, . It’s like a fairy dying every time you say ‘I don’t believe in fairies’ except that fairies aren’t real so they can’t die. However, I am very real, an every time I see a course being closed down ahead of me or finish funnel packed away before I’ve been through my parkrun heart breaks a little. Since becoming a parkwalker rather than parkrunner I’ve had a quiet weep on the way back from rather too many parkruns. I hate being the one people got frustrated waiting for but it’s confusing too, are walkers welcome or not. Overall, this was a very welcoming and lovely parkrun, but it made me feel incredibly awkward that a volunteer had felt I took took too long. It feeds my insecurity, I feel I take too long too, but I can’t help it, and I need my parkruns too, maybe more than many of the parkrunners who are able to run in other contexts. It is a battle with myself to go to parkruns these days, I am never confident of whether a particular parkrun will welcome me or not. Never mind, I would have 48,599 people running past me tmrw, I’d focus on that, and up until this point I’d felt ok about being slow. I think people who are fast literally cannot comprehend how long it takes to walk if you have a disability or health issue or are just really unfit. Even when I ran some people would routinely comment on social media that anyone can walk 5k in such and such a time which wasn’t too far off my run time. Well maybe a young fit male could, but that’s only a small cohort of parkrunners. Reference early comments about having a fastest 500 finish times, it all feeds into the same narrative of slower participants not being as important as speedier ones. I don’t think parkrun means to do this, but there is work to be done for it to be truly inclusive in my opinion. Oh well. It is still a lovely parkrun, and I did walk it, and I was made welcome, just a blip…

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Soon the finish funnel appeared, and aren’t they lovely. And yes, I would have finished more quickly had I not paused to take photos but see above, I paused to take photos because I can’t walk continuously. It was lovely to see the whole funnel up, ready and waiting. I crossed the line and entered the funnel was processed and timed in, and scanned and surrendered my token, with the tailwalkers just behind as is the parkrun way. Then the volunteers set about results processing and finishing off the close down, and there were purposeful huddles and important looking cone wrangling going on. Hurrah for high vis heroes. We said our thank yous and goodbyes and left the team to their parkrun purposefulness. It is always remarkable to see how events come together, work their magic and then disappear into the non parkrun universe until parkrunday comes around once again.

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There is a cafe on site, we availed ourselves of this for coffee. The food options are limited, and non existent for vegans, but super friendly, and the coffee I thought was good. Nice to have a brief parkfaff. Hurrah!

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and then, once again, time to depart. Bye bye Sutcliffe parkrun, thank you for the warm welcome to your gorgeous park. Thanks especially to whosoever it was who stuck all those individual pink blossoms to the each and every tree down the central avenue to create an extra special ambience. Your efforts were – indeed still are – very much appreciated. Totes loving your work!

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So you see, tu tu to ta dah indeed, just like I promised! Three hundred parkruns done, tick.

Just in case you were there, and you missed them, photos from today can be found on this google drive link, but only for a week more, then I’ll delete it because my cloud will burst otherwise, but if you want to keep any, you can download yourself. Go wild! But expect to find it pretty empty by the middle of May, you have been warned 🙂 https://photos.app.goo.gl/EeGghfFjorjkEM7FA

Oh you want to know how it went with the procession the next day? Pretty good to be fair. I reckon that I got the waving bit totally nailed, and although I didn’t actually count everyone who passed, it was on the news with 48,599 people along the route – more if you count the marshals and escorts, so I’ll take that. I feel we maintained more enthusiasm and channeled more joy than the actual royals who frankly are looking somewhat stiff and lacking animation, no such half hearted measures on our part. We set out our pitch outside the house I was being hosted in, and then just stayed there all morning whilst people jigalonged by, hurrah!

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Thanks to all who came on by. Awesome to see you all, each and every one!

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And this woman was extra sensational, Go Hassan Go! Feeling the fear and doing it anyway, totally smashed it. I like to think my rattle spinning and enthusiasm helped a lot! Amazing females indeed. Thanks for coming by, appreciated. 😉

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Thanks to the 227 fellow parkrunners and 27 high vis heroes who joined me for my 300th parkrun. I reckon we all jigalonged our tree identical labs very expertly. Thanks too to the 48 thousand 599 passers by who took the trouble to run by me on the Sunday, honestly, you made it pretty special. Yay for the running community who made it so. You are all stars to me.

That’s all for now, but as always, you can browse through all my parkrun related posts here.  Or not.  It’s up to you.  You’ll need to scroll down for older entries though. And don’t forget to check out the pics if you joined the field at Sutcliffe parkrun on tu tu day, you never know, this could be your dream parkrun photo, best of all time. To be fair, that’s pretty unlikely, but you never do quite know. Good luck! Time is ticking though, those pics won’t be there for long… Do what you must.

Oh, but this is cool!! A timely reminder to get yourself on a volunteer roster near you in time for next parkrunday. Go awn, go awn, you know you want to! I mean not necessarily trentham gardens, lovely as that is, you could opt in to your nearest and dearest.

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Nabbing Noteworthy Newark parkrun # 439

Another parkrunday another new parkrun. NewARK parkrun to be precise. New ARK New ARK so good they named it – oh no hang on that’s not quite right is it. Also, stole that punnage from elsewhere. I do love a good pun! I don’t entirely know why I settled on this one. I have a list of parkruns that are on my ‘to do’ list for various reasons. Some are aspirational known big hitters (Bere Island parkrun anyone) some have iconic usps (Somerdale Pavilion with its Curly Wurly section) and others that are just doable, i.e. that are in reach of Sheffield and worth a punt. I missed parkrun last week on account of snow and ice and not being able to leave the house apart from to build a snowdragon (obvs) so was somewhat aggrieved by that, lovely as the snowy landscape was. Would be hard to miss another one this week too.

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This week, I wasn’t entirely feeling the love if I’m honest. I’m getting mega frustrated by residual pain and feeling unfit and physically horrible really. A number of people I know have headed off for some fancy international tourism, and although I’m pleased for them, I do feel somewhat like the child left behind whilst all the grownups go off to play. Then I had insomnia culminating in that falling back to sleep again as soon as the alarm goes off, so ended up actually coming to somewhat later than originally planned.

I surfaced confused and needing to head off, feeling discombobulated and indecisive. I had a quick march about the garden and was hugely cheered by relatively mild weather, a noisy chorus of chirping birds and many newts diving about my pond. Admittedly, they were tucking into the frogspawn with some vigour proving once again that just as every cloud has a silver lining, every silver lining has its cloud. Nevertheless, circle of life and all that, and newts are pretty cool. The blossom was bursting out, daffodils swaying cheerily, definitely better to be up and about rather than rolling back under the duvet. Spring has sprung, or at the very least is gearing up to spring, clocks change next week, it’s all happening. Right then, where to go?

I plucked Newark as an accessible option somewhat at random. I did have a quick looksie at their Newark parkrun Facebook page page and was cheered by the profile pic, they look a jolly lot. It would be fine. Fun even. They are all jumping for joy in anticipation of fine fun times. Can’t wait to join the party! I mean just look at them, they can hardly contain themselves, this type of enthusiasm is infectious and intriguing, what secrets will Newark parkrun offer up to explain such unbridled joy I wondered. Come with me on my journey and maybe we’ll find out together…

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It was quite liberating in a way, to head off with no idea what lay ahead. Sort of making my own adventure but without the expense, discomfort and carbon costs of getting on a plane. Admittedly, also without the new country flag on my parkrun profile, but what has Donaupark parkrun got that Newark hasn’t, parkrun is the same everywhere is it not. Well, it may have proximity to the River Danube but turns out (spoiler alert) Newark parkrun goes properly alongside the River Devon, which is basically the River Trent! I know! All the things. You want a river at your parkrun? A river you shall have!

I’ll do some of the reveal in a different order to that in which I experienced it. Let’s start with the official Newark parkrun website blah de blah.

The event takes place at Sconce and Devon Park, Boundary Road, Newark, Nottinghamshire, NG24 4AU.

We can learn that the course is described as:

The course starts with a 250m initial straight before turning right and beginning 3 anticlockwise laps of a loop, the loop consists of a variety of terrains. The run starts on the Tarmac paths leading down to the nature reserve area which consists of a soft bark path. The barked path then leads up some steps and onto the grassed football pitches. The runners will then follow the grass leading back onto the tarmac path to the start of the loop. After finishing the 3 laps you then follow the initial straight back to finish.

Join us for a parkrun special (a discounted offer for parkrun runners) in the Rumbles Cafe (directly in front of the finish line).

Location of start – From the main car park and the Rumbles Cafe there is a main footpath leading onto the park. The start point is approx 50-100m along this path, where there are some tree stumps and benches. The parkrun start location will be signposted; this will be visible from the car park.

Getting there by road – The park lies close to the B6166 Farndon Road which can be accessed via the A46 Farndon roundabout. The exit for the B6166 can be found next to the Lord Ted restaurant/pub. Follow the B6166 Farndon Road for 0.8 miles and take a right turn onto Boundary Road, follow Boundary Road for approx 200ft the park entrance can be seen on the right before the Holy Trinity School. The main car park is free and can be accessed from this entrance.

Post Run Coffee – Every week we grab a post parkrun coffee in Rumbles Café – please come and join us!

My bad for reading this late, didn’t know about the discount and bottled going for coffee, I rather regret this now, they were a friendly lot but, well I’ll tell you later…

and it looks like this:

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so basically a badly drawn carrot with a big square bite taken out of it, or a weirdly shaped welders helmet thingy.

I headed off, postcode in, radio on and had a pleasingly contemplative drive. It was an easy run, taking exactly the 1 hour 11 mins predicted, no rain, and astonishingly I didn’t get lost and made my way straight to the handily located carpark about 8.40ish and parked up in one of the half a dozen or so spaces still available, in a spot from which I could see the reassuring sight of gathering volunteers and even a new dinky teeny tiny pop up stand, not far away but actually very small! Delightful.

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I espied the rumblings cafe area, and from the people dodging in and out deduced, correctly, that here be loos. Hurrah. This is a parkrun with all your needs catered for. Easy to find, parking, clear start area and loos and cafe all in easy range of the start/ finish. Hurrah!

I wasn’t feeling socially confident, so hung back a bit, but did have an explore. This park is amazing. There is a lot of history from the Civil War linked to this space, which I had no idea about at all. Wooden carvings and helpful signs abounded. I wished I had a bit more stamina for a proper explore, you could easily spend more time here. Even just near the start were notices about wildflower areas, wildlife and a civil war trail. parkrun wise, there were permanent signs with the route of both the 5k parkrun and the junior 2k event, which is especially splendid.

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To save you the considerable effort of conducting your own google search, I have done this for you, and can report that

Sconce and Devon Park
Surround yourself with civil war history and discover the very best of the great outdoors at Sconce and Devon park (NG24 4AU),

Enjoy the present in Newark’s largest open space, where you’ll find modern facilities including a children’s play area, fitness trail, cafe and a network of pathways suitable for prams and pushchairs.

And step back in time by exploring the star-shaped site of the Queen’s Sconce – one of the country’s finest remaining earthworks from the 17th century British Civil War. Signs and a trail around the park explain the history of the site.

The park has been awarded Green Flag status in recognition of its excellent range of facilities, maintenance standards and opportunities for community involvement.

All good to know.

Plus, if you check up wikipedia it tells you that:

Sconce and Devon Park is a park in Newark, Nottinghamshire, England. It is the location of Queen’s sconce, an earthwork fortification that was built in 1646 during the First English Civil War, to protect the garrison of King Charles I based at Newark Castle. It is a listed ancient monument. The park has a visitor centre, local nature reserve and it is part of a civil war trail through the town.

So now we know what a Sconce is, and be honest, we didn’t entirely before now did we? Admit it, at first you thought it was just a typo and you’d stumbled on a baking blog. Now we all now better, do please try to drop it into a conversation casually somehow, over the next week. It will annoy impress your friends and make you feel super smart – no, wait, sorry, I meant super self conscious, always getting those two experiences mixed up. It’s a burden.

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Queen’s Sconce
Held by the Royalists, Newark-on-Trent played a major role in the First English Civil War, located on the last crossing point of the River Trent and at the intersection of the Great North Road and Fosse Way it was strategically important. The stronghold was centred on Newark Castle and was besieged three times before it succumbed, at the King’s instruction, in May 1646. The sieges resulted in extensive siegeworks built by both sides.[3]

Construction
The second siege of Newark had highlighted the weaknesses of the garrison’s defences and two new earthwork forts were constructed. The Queen’s Sconce was one of these with the other being the King’s Sconce. The Queen’s Sconce was built upon a knoll positioned to cover approaches to the town from the south. It was named after the wife of Charles I, Henrietta Maria of France. The Sconce is one of the few forts that still survive and was only left untouched because the victorious Parliamentary army fled because of fears of the plague.[4] The sconce measures 120m by 133m with a height of up to 9m, angle bastions project from the south, south west, north and north east. The corners of the ramparts are interpreted as platforms for firing artillery. The ramparts and bastions are enclosed by a ditch up to 21m wide and 3.6m to 4.5m deep. A counterscarp bank about 0.7m in height running along the south eastern and north eastern edge of the ditch shows the location of a palisade which contemporary accounts suggest originally enveloped the sconce.[5] It was built using gravel from the River Devon[2] and it is star-shaped when viewed from above.[6]

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The thing is, whereas sometimes you read stuff about a place and you think ‘well, that’s all very well, but it’s not exactly obvious when you are here’ in this place they have done a quite brilliant job of curating it all so you do get a sense of what you are seeing, even just by taking part in the parkrun, it was extremely well signed and looked after, definitely a venue where it’d be good to allow a bit of extra time to go explore. It is a compact space, but screams historical interest, not in a ‘dull yawn, meaningless dates‘ way but in a ‘whoa I’d like to find out more about all of this cool and interesting stuff‘ sort of way

There is a whole interactive Civil War Trail, which looks interesting, I think it should be compulsory to complete this in full historical re-enactment garb, which is not to be confused with hysterical re-enactment although I daresay there is considerable overlap between the two. Supporting the volunteers were various wooden statues. I presume these are part of the trail, or at least reference the history, but in a rather lovely quirk of parkrun utility, they were stepping up to support the core team in delivery of the event. So one fine figure was trying to recruit volunteers for future weeks, whereas others were guarding – and indeed modelling – kit and bags left by parkrunners whilst out on their 5k. Much like Bing at Crosby parkrun has his own high vis at the turnaround point on the beach, one of the iconic Antony Gormley sculptures that together make up the – to me at least – poignant ‘Another Place‘ set. These wooden carvings seemed rather less desolate and more embraced by the parkrun community, each giving according to their ability to the main event. Nice inclusive touch there. The chap recruiting volunteers was particularly effective, good job, well played. He’s taken a pretty bad injury there, but just shows, you can still volunteer at a parkrun, even if you aren’t able to run due to missing a relevant limb or being constructed entirely of aging wood. Like I said, parkrun, at its best, is an inclusive place. Newark parkrun also had a pony! So really, it offered up a pretty much identical experience to that offered up in Vienna, they might have the Spanish Riding School and Pegasus on show, but Newark has a very lovely pony sufficiently earthbound you can actually go and say hello, so in some ways way better than Vienna where the flying horse is clearly out of reach. You don’t have to be flashy to be fabulous. Also, no cricks in your neck admiring this fine fellow though. See if you can spot which is which in the slideshow that follows! Good luck.

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I busied myself with wandering about, squinting to see if there was anyone I recognised and bracing myself for the challenge ahead. I made a decision to try this parkrun without my stick. I’ve been wondering for a while now if I really need it, or am just using it out of habit. I no longer feel like I’m going to topple over, it’s just that I’m in pain all the time, but I don’t think having the stick reduces the pain at all, and I have been managing pottering around without it a bit more lately, I even left it behind somewhere one day, so logically I can’t be absolutely reliant on it. Of course, this meant that Red Ted, and indeed his fellow wonkies sat this parkrun out in the car, but I needed to test myself. I was a bit apprehensive, but thought it was best to just try it somewhere where nobody knows me so it would be less of a big deal, and as this is a three lap course, I figured worst case scenario I could bail, which would be gutting, but not catastrophic. Lucy Logic you see. 🙂

Diversionary photos included trying to get a couple of the ambience of people gathering, but it was harder than you might think. My camera really isn’t up to it. This however may be it’s final outing, as today was also the day when I was due to collect my new smartphone. I hope it is the phone that is required to be smart, not me. I am deeply apprehensive about this acquisition, but horribly aware that I’ve been missing out on stuff due to lack of one. It had to be done. Anyway, here are my pre parkrun photos for your delight, diversion and delectation, or not:-

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Please do remember, it is the thought that counts. If you squint a bit, some of them come into quite charming focus. Anyway, hopefully you will go and check it out for yourself one day, and then you can take your own super duper photos and not worry about whinging about my rubbishy ones.

I loved the elegance of the silver birch trees, but what was extra special, was that somehow this parkrun feels like it’s an organic part of the space. Everything fits together neatly, with statues and trees and signs all perfectly situated for maximum parkrun delivery cohesion. Very impressive indeed. It is refreshing to see a space where parkrun seemed genuinely welcome, it is part of the venue’s offer, and sits comfortably alongside many other park users, dog walkers, football players, walkers, civil war explorers all.

After a bit, a shout went up to gather any first timers. I really liked the way this parkrun was set up. It was clear where to gather, and the call was loud enough you really couldn’t have missed it. Plus it’s all in the same area really so if you have found the start, you have found the first timers’ welcome zone too. The Run Director did the briefing, with the visual aid of the maps of the routes. A boon indeed! Excitingly, there were at least a couple of parkrunners who were brand new to parkrun, I love that, and this was a really great parkrun to pick for a parkrun debut, it would have been interesting to know how they came to choose it, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to them and anyway, was a bit preoccupied with my own parkrun angst to be completely honest.

It was a great welcome. The usual course description – it’s changed a bit from the early days apparently, but I couldn’t tell you how. The main thing is up and out, turn right and THREE laps. Follow the person in front, unless you are the person in front, in which case look out for the marshals. One pause for thought was mention of the ‘dreaded steps’ Wait, what dreaded steps? I had a moment of doubt about whether it was wise to go stickless. I was imagining something like that whole Odessa Steps sequence from the Battleship Potemkin film only with everyone running up them rather than down, but with equal panic and mayhem. Gulp. There was reference to possible muddyness in a wooded section, a river, best not to fall in I guess, and a generic keep left on the narrow sections. People were encouraged to declare where they’d come from, and they had indeed come from near and far, a diverse gathering indeed, including I think at least one with a home run overseas. I’m sure there was a collective ‘ooh’ of appreciation from everyone when they declared, or was it Cornwall? No Holland, or maybe Johannesburg? Oh lordy, my short term memory seems to be completely shot these days. Anyway, the takeaway from this, is that it was all very welcoming, and the RD made a real effort to encourage people to interact as well as explaining the necessaries. All good.

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Bit more wandering about, and then it was the official Run Director’s Briefing. Claps for volunteers, tourists, invitation to sign up to volunteer, a yay for the weather. All was delivered on some rather excellent steps, aided by a microphone and some speakers. It was easy to hear, and felt like a friendly and safe place. There was the usual pre parkrun buzz of people stretching, warming up, greeting one another and comparing parkrun stories.

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It was a focused briefing and then ‘suddenly’ we were off! It was quite a wide start area with people approaching from all directions to form an arrowhead as they neared the official path. This wasn’t exactly alarming, because it was very good natured and the locals are probably used to it, but it did rather thwart my attempt to stand at the sidelines, get a start photo and then slot in the back, as I was in the midst of a river of runners flowing by and around me. It reminded me a bit of the mass start at Bushy Park in that the path couldn’t have everyone join at once so people have to start wide and narrow in after the first few metres. It adds an extra frisson of excitement for sure!

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The start is glorious, because you scamper (or the hobbling equivalent) down hill and you can see the colourful stream of runners ahead of you dancing about like bunting at a spring fayre! It’s a route that really encourages you to want to go explore. You can see the intriguing bridge and earth structures ahead, the tree lined path entices you on to the green space ahead, it was gorgeous. The sun shone, the birds were singing the blossom was out. The early part of the route was compressed gravel, so a good surface, though some participants, like me, started off on the grass before joining in on the path as it thinned out. Lovely.

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Off we scampered. It was hard not to be distracted by the earth works, particularly because there was a VERY enthusiastic dog spectator barking support, or more accurately, his disappointment at being left out of all the scampering. I’m not sure if he was with a parkrunner and looking out for them, or had just twigged that this stampede of people looked super fun and he was desperate to be part of it. Many people have felt that too to be fair, watching a parkrun unfold in front of them. Me too, the months and months when I couldn’t leave the house at all were really hard, watching parkruns unfold on Facebook just isn’t the same.

Just past the earth works, glancing the cannon as you run by (not a fully operational one by the way, wouldn’t want to get your hopes up) there was a sharp right, and you are off on the first of three laps. The route takes you down towards a river and a wildlife area. There were swans, and birdsong and spring flowers as well as cheery marshals to stop you scampering straight on when you needed to pass through the lovely natural looking arch or from keeping going straight on and ending up in the river when you needed to stick to the path alongside. This path was lovely. It is only a relatively small section, but it felt like a mini wilderness. And as it’s a three lap course, you get to enjoy it three times. Yay!

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You head up again through the woods, and as you do so, you can espy the silhouettes of faster parkrunners through the trees, very atmospheric, oh for a better camera to adequately capture the moments. And a little further ahead the steps! These are not at all like the Odessa Steps in fact, but lovely woodland steps, just a few to bound up, well constructed with soft bouncy earth to put a spring in your step as you do so. Daffodils dipped alongside, and tree blossom framed us all over head, oh and there was a squirrel and an owl on a tree. Not real ones, but delightful to see all the same. Many things. Although I gathered this section is not popular with everyone because of the upward nature of it, I rather liked it. The surface was lovely, soft springy earth and leaf litter probably, it was really gentle on the legs. It perhaps could get muddy if it was very wet, but it was perfect today, might be a challenge with a buggy though to be fair, but fine for me. I was also hugely relieved to find it doable, I had worried about not having my walking pole with me for that section, but it was alright, painful going up, but I didn’t feel at risk of falling, so I am slowly getting more confident it seems. I was being lapped by this point (yep, already, really) so snapped a few shots of the faster parkrunners bounding on by.

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You emerge from the woods into a green space and cones, signs and marshals keep you on track. You go round the perimeter of a field and back on yourself. There is no danger of getting lost but a lot of cones and flags had been set out earlier to ensure this. Whoever does the course check and set up needs a round of applause and a virtual high five, a lot of work had gone into getting it right, and it was not a five minute job. Again, as you come back down and are the silhouetted parkrunner you had admired earlier, you can now espy the other parkrunners below you. I’m really coming round to multi lap courses, they are very much more sociable for the first couple of laps at any rate. The final lap I got to do on my own, with marshals to support me round.

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I was quite proud of myself for doing some arty daffodil shots as parkrunners overtook me before I joined in behind them back in the woods. Look on and be amazed!

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and then you take a right out of the trees and alongside some football pitches. For the first lap people were just starting to gather, but as the parkrun went on, teams appeared to warm up and then to play with supporters on the touch line to cheer them on. This is a well used and appreciated green space. I didn’t take photos of the football because I wasn’t sure it was appropriate, but I’m assuming you’ll go check it out for yourself at some point, won’t you? Rhetorical question, of course you will! Then, before you know it, you emerge at the end of the first lap, faster parkrunners were pelting back towards the finish, which is where the start is, but I kept on going round.

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It thinned out a fair bit on the second lap, but that was fine. One jolly parkrunner admired my leggings. She was right to do so, they are fabulous! Thank you for noticing coral coloured trainers parkrunner. They were gifted to me by a special Oodersfield friend for our matchy matchy outfits at Zielony Jar parkrun last month. They have giraffes on them. Well, pictures of giraffes, not real ones stapled on, that wouldn’t be practical let alone ethical. For those who are interested these are the full length pocket llama leisure leggings, love ’em. Super stretchy, super comfy nice people at #llamaleisures feel free to sponsor me for product endorsement if you wish. Size 8-14 is my preferred fit thank you for asking. The marshals were lovely, of course, they always are. I appreciated the general friendliness of the event and people talking to me as I went round, the odd word of support or encouragement. It makes a difference. If you live on your own and have unpredictable work as I do, it’s possible to go many days without actually speaking to anyone. You start to wonder if you are actually invisible, and although I daresay that would be a pretty amazing super power, it isn’t the most positive of experiences more generally to have inadvertently become so. You start off feeling invisible, on the outside looking in and then you start to wonder if you even exist at all. It was reassuring to find I wasn’t in fact invisible, and boded well for getting my barcode scanned at the end too. Always a boon at a parkrun. Never underestimate the impact of a cheery smile to a fellow parkrunner or indeed non parkrunner, little interactions matter. More than you might know. I was also starting to struggle by lap two. I set off with some enthusiasm, mustering even a little joglet, just to see how it felt, and at the time it felt ok, but inevitably there was a cost, my body just doesn’t do the things I used to take for granted any more. Oh well, worse things happen at the seaside. Have you seen the amount of raw sewage that gets pumped in and that’s before we even start on the littering! And I broke my kneecap at the seaside too, which was quite horrid, so I speak with some authority on the subject.

Where was I? Oh yes, second lapping at Newark parkrun, lovely.

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Finished the second lap, and then a marshal queried if I had in fact finished. Alas, I most definitely had not. Easy mistake on his part, I do have the body of an athlete after all. A sumo wrestling athlete perhaps, but an athlete nevertheless. Anyway, it was no hardship to go round all over again.

For the final lap I was more solitary, most other parkrunners and parkwalkers having finished, and the tailwalker being a little further behind. It was fine though, greenbathing in the park. I enjoyed the scenery and the spectacle of the footballers. There were children on sparkly scooters, dogs of all shapes and sizes and plenty of others strolling about the space. On reflection it was very litter free as well, particularly impressive given how well used it was and also its proximity to residential properties. Very nice. There being no-one in sight I remarked to one marshal that I must be winning Park Race. Hopefully, the quip was recognised as such – it is of course a run not a race and parkrun is always aowalc (all one word, all lower case). Anything else makes the true parkrun passionista shudder. Just as a pea under a mattress will reveal a true princess, a misplaced P at the start of Parkrun will reveal a parkrunista in panic mode. Amazing how much trouble ps and peas and pees can cause is it not.

Eventually, I finished the final lap and it was time to head back towards the start. You get to gawp at the sights again, and then are welcomed into the colourful embrace of the smiling attendees at the finish funnel. Aren’t they just gawgous!

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I liked the way the parkrun has been put together by – presumably – a time and motion expert. So you go through the tunnel, then you move to the scanning area and finally to the bench with the token sorting and processing set up. They had a cleverly labelled token box so you placed yours back in the right place and then once they were in groups of ten one of the volunteers sorted them and strung them up presumably. In a good way, not a hanging out to dry bad way. I haven’t seen such fine work with dymo tape since the seventies! To be quite honest, I didn’t even know it was still a thing. I presumed it had gone the way of green shield stamps and the testcard. Good to know it’s still out there. In fact, I caused some discombobulation with my arrival with my 200 token, they were behind with their token groupings. I left them busily catching up on the final ten.

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Just time to turn around and cheer the tailwalker in. There was a merry band of marshals acting as a guard of honour for the final couple of finishers. My camera battery chose just this moment to die, but I did manage a couple of pics of the marshals laden with arrows and signs they had gathered on their walk home. Then the team busied themselves with the usual course close down, and results uploading and processing and cheery farewells until same time next week. Team work, making the dream work. Thank you high vis heroes for nailing Newark parkrun for everyone today 🙂

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And that was that!

There was of course the option to have breakfast at Rumbles, and it looked like many were availing themselves of that opportunity and probably making use of the parkrun discount too. I considered it, but my pain levels were quite high and I felt I needed to just get home to rest up. I have some regret about missing this though, as I feel confident it would have been another cheery assembly and turns out it’s a social enterprise venture too. Oh well, next time maybe, and this is a parkrun I’d be very happy to return to. I bet it’s lovely in the different seasons too with all those fabulous trees to change colour through the year. Check out the Sconce and Devon Park Facebook page for photos to tease you as to what will unfold, lively and busy lot those park people. That’s park life for you. And they do bat walks! How brilliant is that!

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Instead, for now, homeward bound.

That’s not the end though, because my route home took me a different route, through a one way system that went by a wharf and past some amazingly picturesque Victorian red brick buildings presumably linked to the mill which was referenced everywhere in the road names. Speaking of which, can we have a particular shout out for Huddlestones Wharf, which I passed by on my way out from the parkrun. What the? What a fantastic name! Newark is full of them. I am increasingly of the view that Newark would be a most excellent destination for a hole day of exploring and cafe hopping. |Just peering through the windows of the car on the drie home there was much I’d have happily paused for if I hadn’t needed to get back to rest up.

I didn’t even know what a Huddlestone was. It sounds lovely and cosy though doesn’t it? A stone around which people can huddle surely. How very apt for parkrun purposes. Maybe that’s what that big stone slab in the middle of stonehenge is for. Tess D’Urberville may have been slumped dying across it, but it p’raps has a jollier purpose. I would find out!

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As a public service worthy of the most committed parkrunpedia researchers, I’ve had a bit of a google. Turns out, Huddleston was ‘(Ernest Urban) Trevor, 1913–1998, English Anglican archbishop and antiapartheid activist in Africa.’ Well, never heard of him, what a cool name, and important cause. Might need to look into him a bit more as never heard of him. I guess we remember the main figurehead of Mandela, and rightly so, but there was a whole movement working to end apartheid, we should look more widely to understand the contributions of others too. Talking of ‘looking more widely’ i also found an urban dictionary containing definitions for Huddlestone which started off moderately interesting if somewhat unlikely ‘a word denoting an anti-Richard III-ite who makes it his/her mission to tarnish the reputations of Richard III and all supporters of him‘ and then became increasingly bizarre and a bit dark. You really do have to be careful what you google, it’s a jungle out there. Still, on the plus side, if I hadn’t spotted the sign to Huddlestones Wharf on the way home, my life would have been the poorer for it. parkrun is always edutainment, as I’m sure by now you must know. You can find out more about Trevor Huddlestone here on wikipediasoitmustbetrue Takeaway is that huddlestone isn’t a rock to huddle around unfortunately, but the name is a reminder of a dark period of history the repercussions of which many still live with today. Worth remembering. The entry is an interesting read, and not an entirely comfortable one. Some things we will never know I guess.

Right, that’s your lot. Another fine parkrun destination discovered. Thank you lovely Newark parkrun team and parkrunners for your warm welcome to your fabulous space.

May all your parkruns be joyful, and every stone an opportunity for a group of parkrunners to group around for a healing huddle. Be happy. Be kind. Here’s hoping our parkrun paths cross again one day.

and if you are thinking of going to Newark parkrun, look out for this – not my picture, stolen from the Newark parkrun Facebook page, I’m sure they won’t mind… 🙂

In the meantime you could always browse through all my parkrun related posts here.  Or not.  It’s up to you.  You’ll need to scroll down for older entries though

**STOP PRESS**

And here is the official run report for Newark parkrun event 18 March 2023, if you wish to check things out for triangulation purposes, always prudent to do so. And check out this lovely montage from Mike Munro accompanying his message on the facebook page, thanking all the volunteers. As he says ‘Whatever the Weather without the Team of Volunteers we would have no Newark parkrun so Thank You #Volunteers parkrun UK‘. Warms the proverbial cockles does it not 🙂

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#loveparkrun

Best of times at Bestwood Village parkrun #248

You never regret a parkrun EVER!

I wasn’t really feeling the love this morning. It was cold, I was feeling rough, and had no particular parkrun plans or people to go with or meet up with. I’m feeling somewhat earthbound at present, walking is hard and honestly, did have a brief moment of wondering whether or not to just roll back under the duvet for once. And might have done, but for a parkrunning friend messaging me to say that parkrun is not compulsory and maybe take a Saturday off. What sacrilege was this! It was enough to shake me to my senses, if not to my very core. It may not be actually compulsory to do a parkrun on parkrunday, but surely only in the sense that the parkrun police wont take you into custody as such. However, it is mandatory in the way that brushing your teeth in the morning is. I wouldn’t dream of facing a day without doing so, and if ever I’ve had to omit this baseline of personal hygiene – due to combination of forgotten toothbrush and extreme near death illness say – I spend the day feeling uncomfortable and even soiled in some way. It’s no way to live. Of course I’d go to a parkrun! Having my bluff called worked. Barcode on, thermals on, parkrun buff on, way to go! Also, where to go?

I have a list of parkruns that are in relatively easy reach of Sheffield, and Bestwood Village has been on it for aaaaaaaaaaaages. I don’t even know why I’ve not been before. I think it’s because at a subconscious level, Bestwood Village makes me think of an out of town shopping centre or discount retail outlets. Souless, concrete, nowt to see or do. If I’d thought about it a bit more, it was on balance unlikely that any such venue would host a parkrun, since unless it was one that began with an X (obvs), the lure of a 50 lap course round a parking lot would wear thin. And that’s allowing for the fact that it would probably be super handy for loos and post parkrun coffee. Mind you, I guess there would always be some hardcore parkrunners up for it. What about those legends that did 5k garden parkruns and even marathon distances in hotel rooms during lockdown? Mind you, lockdown drove a lot of people quite a long way down the continuum to eccentricity – if not actual madness, probably not the best reference point for parkrunning mortals now lockdown is no more. Bestwood Village parkrun it would be, it was only an hour away, and as like Lady Macbeth (but without the bloodied hands) I seem incapable of sleep, I was wide awake in good time to get over there anyway.

I’d already printed off all the info, so for those of you who like the official blah de blah I can share with you that, according to the Bestwood Village parkrun website the course:

The event takes place at Bestwood Country Park, Park Rd, Bestwood village, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG6 8UE.

Course Description: One lap clockwise around the Park, starting from the Dynamo House, heading East. There are two (and a half!) “undulations” through woodland and open parkland. As well as the marshals and temporary event signs, the course has permanent direction and distance signs.

Facilities: There is limited free parking at the Country Park: look out for parkrun signs announcing extra parking along Park Road. There is a toilet in the Dynamo House by the Start/Finish area, accessible when café staff begin preparing for the café, and there are public toilets at 1.2k around the course. Drinks and cake are on sale in the Dynamo House café after the event.

Location of start: The event starts from the back of the Dynamo House.

Getting there by road: Bestwood Country Park is on the edge of Bestwood Village, 6 miles north of Nottingham city centre. The car park can be accessed off Park Road. Sat nav users follow NG6 8UE.

Post Run Coffee: Every week we grab a post parkrun coffee in Dynamo House – please come and join us!

and the course looks like this:

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Wait, so Bestwood Village is not some ghastly out of town retail outlet centre at all then? This looks really nice! How have I missed this one for so long? That’ll do. And one lap! Not done a one lapper in far too long. Quick check on their pages in case of last minute cancellations but nope, looking good, and even a my-sized gap on the rota for a second parkwalker, I might volunteer my services for that if I got there in time if they were happy to have me. Relaxed either way, but the blue vis is definitely the most flattering and it is a gateway to interacting with other parkrunners and volunteers when you get to a new venue if you don’t know anyone. Yep, that would work, this had the makings of a plan!

I quite perked up, off and out, and on my way. It was a straightforward drive to Nottingham, taking me near Sherwood Pines parkrun and probably Beeston parkrun, which are two others I have very fond memories off. Oh, and hang on, am I breezing past Hucknall junior parkrun territory too? That has a great reputation as a friendly and fun parkrun. This boded well.

I made good time, cheered on my way by passing through Papplewick, which is indubitably the most excellent name for a village, and to find it is a real place, and not a made up one for hobbitland is a real boon. I also passed a rather upmarket events venue that specialises in catering for Geese, which, not gonna lie, I found commendable, but confusing. I guess with avian flu all around, those feathered friends that are able to afford it, need to take care of their health as best they can! To be fair, Papplewick does sound like the sort of place that might have such niche venues #goodtoknow

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The drive really did take me through some gorgeous little villages with stone houses, traditional looking pubs and a fine selection of ancient looking crosses. I was obviously focussed on getting to parkrun, but it did make me think this is a part of the world that would be fun to explore, and that is rich with history. There was many a Sherwood reference along the way, and plenty of green spaces and woodland too, yep, this is indeed a lovely part of the world. parkrun touristing is much more fun as the days get longer and warmer – though next week could be a challenge – and it was good to be venturing a bit out and about without constant fear of imminent death due to icy patches, ill-lit roads and unknown territory. Touristing is best as a spring and summer hobby it is true.

The parkrun was super easy to find, but what made it extra fun, was the sight of two exuberant marshals, handily positioned to direct parkrunners to their overflow parking. This is maybe a 15 minute or so walk from the official start, and is locked at around 10.30 I think, but stops parkrunners clogging up the official carpark so preventing other users from visiting the country park. Fair enough. Having said that, the cheery high vis heroes advised me there was some parking a bit nearer, so I took advantage of that. Although I’m much more mobile than I was, a 5k is about my limit and if I’d had to walk there and back as well I’m not sure I’d have managed, certainly not within the time frames allowed. However, it isn’t that far, and would be the more public spirited option if coming in. Plus, you get to see the amazing foam fingered duo, who wouldn’t want to follow that directional pointing, it was ACE!

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Greatly cheered by this welcome, I chugged on up to the main carpark. There was space, but it isn’t huge, I can see why they encourage parking a bit further away. Before arriving I wasn’t sure what the Dynamo Building was, but when you arrive you can’t mistake the old colliery machinery workings. They look rather fine, standing out against the blue sky. There were already some ‘caution runner’ and directional arrow signs out, and I could see the volunteers gathering too. All good. And it was only just 8.30 so lots of time. Oh, and pussy willow, right near where I’d parked the car, very seasonally appropriate. Usual apologies for my camera offerings, I know it’s time to replace, I really am on the cusp of getting a smart phone now, with a decent camera, but currently paralysed by indecision and horror at the cost. It’s a dilemma, the horns on which I sit uncomfortably. I am increasingly shamed by my pics, though I guess they are enough to give you the general idea, and frankly, for this parkrun in particular, you really should make the effort to come and see it for yourself.

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So I hovered awkwardly for a bit, and then, seeing as the volunteers appeared friendly, went to say hello and see if a parkwalker might still be welcomed. They did have one already, but seemed to take a more the merrier view of things, and were happy for me to add my name to the rota which was appreciated. There were lots of fun things about the parkrun set up which I’d not seen before, so much to explore. First though, I explored the loo situation. Now, strictly speaking there aren’t really loos at the start, though there are some a mile or so round the route. However, the café was just opening, and as I was now resplendent in my high vis it was ok to nip in and avail myself of the facilities. It is just the one loo though, so not really geared up for hoards of parkrunners. What’s more, as a hangover from covid ventilation perhaps, hilariously and somewhat alarmingly, the loo door was held open with string, however, you are allowed to remove this before entering so you can powder your nose without the entire café staff looking on. Leaving the café was somewhat challenging though, as they have an automatic door, but one where you have to push a button to activate it, and when you are standing in front of the door, the button is behind you on a pillar that you can’t see. It took me longer than it ought to have done to find it. More mortifying still, I thought at first it was motion activated, so stepped back and tried to walk through it again, not a good look. Honestly, I sometimes wonder how it is I am able to live independently giving that passing through a door seemed to defeat me. Still, it’s not like anyone will ever know is it. Apart from you Dear Reader, and I’m sure you won’t tell will you?

Right, exciting things I’d not seen before, or things that I was excited to see again so beautifully executed. Well, there was a real attention to detail here. The welcoming flag was where you couldn’t fail to see it as you turned into the park, so that was a win for starters. They have the new diddy pop up sign (which I do find hard to take seriously to be honest, I know size isn’t everything, but it just looks so shrunken compared to it’s huge, aerodynamic, monstrously difficult to collapse or carry predecessor. I think the new bijous version is probably an improvement, it’s certainly more manageable, but change can be hard can it not. That’s probably why I caught sight of the old sign peering out from behind some bins. It haunts the parkrun route still. The diddy pop up sign was positioned where the first timers’ welcome and start were located. It also had the backdrop of the colliery workings which was a nice touch. Then there was the Personal Best Bell, with which Red Ted was especially taken. A displayed map of the course along with its elevation and undulations – it is Yorkshire flat. There were details of how to volunteer and perhaps finest and most innovative or all a board where finish tokens could be hung up, saving the token sorter a lot of grief. There was also a handy table surrounded by friendly volunteers. There also seemed to be a ‘guess how many tokens in a jar’ competition going on, and an opportunity to buy fresh eggs, laid this very morning. All very community spirited I felt. Splendid in fact.

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I was super impressed by how friendly and chatty everyone seemed to be. It is nerve wracking rocking up at a new parkrun sometimes, but I was made very welcome. These Nottinghamshire folk seem to be a pathologically friendly lot, I recall being love-bombed at Beeston parkrun too, must be something in the woods that brings out the best in people. You’d be very lucky to have this as your home event. You need never be lonely at a parkrun again!

People started to gather the way parkrunners do. There were a fair few first timers at this parkrun and some barkrunners rocking up for their first ever ever parkrun which was jolly exciting. I LOVE it when people discover parkrun for the very first time. A whole new world for them to explore, their lives will be better for it, body, mind and soul!

After a little while, the RD summoned newbies over for the first timers’ welcome. He had a PA system, the good thing about this is that it was really easy to hear him. The bad thing was some people just talked louder to each other during it. I do despair at people talking through parkrun briefings. It just seems really rude, and like the failure to return library books, the most terrible of wrongs. parkrun asks so little from its participants in return for the free, weekly timed event, just to turn up, respect other participants and parkrun users, listen to the briefings and have a barcode if you want a time. I tried not to be too irritated, but it was a stretch.

The briefing was excellent, good humoured, welcoming and full of helpful information. There was rather a lot of talk about hills, almost all of which went upwards apparently, very little on the downhill side of undulations as far as I could make out. The course was described in some details, just one lap, regular marshals with their won spots, and a part with a red cone in an area parkrunners are especially prone to falling over for some reason. I never saw the cone, too busy chatting, maybe that’s what happens and why people end up face planting, I just got away with it today through beginner’s luck? We were reminded you could buy eggs today if you wished, but it was helpfully pointed out it might be best to do this at the end of the run rather than the start. Egg and spoon events not having entirely caught on in the parkrun world as yet for some reason. We were advised to look out for Teresa and Daisy at their own marshal spot, though Daisy wouldn’t be there today, or possibly Teresa, for reasons I can’t quite recall. There was a reminder that the overflow carpark would be locked 10.30ish so if you wanted to go for post parkrun coffee best to retrieve and repark your car. Lots of helpful detail. Be mindful of horses on the course, although for the most part they know about the parkrun and avoid the tracks at those times. Some rather cute cobs clopped by during the briefing to illustrate the point. They had riders with them, they hadn’t come on their own. Then the RD asked if there were any birthdays, or milestones or challenges or anything else. There was a birthday! Hurrah. Someone was twenty one today. Twice! It all felt genuinely welcoming, inclusive, relaxed and good natured, just as a parkrun should be.

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As well as signing in the volunteers, and doing the first timers’ welcome the Run Director then did the official briefing after a short interval. This was to the point, a quick round of applause for volunteers, shout outs for birthdays and egg sales, and then we were orf! It was quite a wide start with parkrunners approaching from a variety of different angles, but it was all pretty good natured, and people found their most appropriate places within the pack. Oh one extra thing, I noticed at the start there is a route marker for a permanent 5k route which is also the parkrun course. That’s pretty cool. It makes it a most excellent place to do a freedom parkrun. This seems a welcoming, almost bespoke parkrun venue, a lot of attention to detail, all good.

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I took some pictures of departing parkrunners then slotted in towards the back. I found myself in something of a no-man’s land with the tailwalkers and accompanying barkwalkers a bit behind me, and then quite a gap to the next walker ahead. After a bit I settled in to my pace, I paused to thank the marshals en route and to try to capture them in action with clapping, directional pointing and supportive cheering all nailed to perfection, each new volunteer even lovelier than the one before – nigh on impossible as that is to believe!

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After the first kilometre or so, another parkrunner, who’d arrived a bit late, caught me up. She paused, thinking I would want her out of my photo and that led to us striking up a conversation, and then there was a particularly fine upward flat section, when she habitually walked bits of it anyway, so we ended up getting in stride together and having a most companionable twalk – walk and talk. It was really nice. We talked about parkrun, obviously, and her experiences as a relatively new convert, she’d only discovered parkrun earlier this year. It was lovely to be reminded of how transformative parkrun can be, and also we talked about the different volunteering roles quite a bit. I felt a bit of a fraud as parkwalker in some ways today as there wasn’t anyone who really needed my support as such, but talking to my walking buddy, it was good to find myself saying that part of the importance of the role is to my walking at parkrun visible. We were talking about cycle paths at one point, and how empty cycle paths don’t seem all that inviting. If you see many cyclists using a busy route then you are much more inclined to join in, the parkwalker role is a bit like that too. Yes, it can be solidarity or company for walkers who want that, but it’s also important just to be there, walking the route, to encourage other walkers to come join in and do the same.

The route is lovely. Even though this might not be the absolutely bonniest time of year, you get lovely open views on the edge of the wood, there is the calm and beauty of mature trees, and a good variety of planting to add interest too. It was nice to see other users of the space too, dog walkers, horse riders, all sorts. I like it when open space is appreciated in this way, everyone we met was very friendly. I had a little look up about the park when I got home, hang on, let me tell you what I’ve found out about Bestwood Country Park.

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Bestwood Country Park is jointly owned by Gedling Borough Council and Nottinghamshire County Council and sits between Arnold and Bestwood village. The park has 650 acres of varied landscape, wildlife and industrial heritage. The park has become popular with walkers, cyclists and bird watchers as well as those coming to see Bestwood Winding Engine House

and according to wikipedieasoitmustbetrue Bestwood Country Park

Bestwood Country Park is a country park near Bestwood Village, Nottinghamshire, England.[1] Bestwood was a hunting estate owned by the Crown from the medieval period until the 17th century, when King Charles II gave it to his mistress, Nell Gwyn, and their son. In the Victorian era, Bestwood was the location of a coal mine which closed in 1967. It was established as a country park in 1973.

History.

In the Middle Ages, Bestwood Country Park was a hunting estate in Sherwood Forest owned by the Crown, and used by the landed gentry and monarchs visiting Nottingham. In the 17th century, King Charles II was known to visit the park with his mistress, Nell Gwyn. He set the boundaries to the park and granted it to Gwyn and their illegitimate son Charles Beauclerk, the 1st Duke of St Albans. Thereafter, land was sold in parcels and in the early 19th century there were thirteen farms in the park. In the Victorian era, owner William Beauclerk made a significant impact on the park when he established the Bestwood Coal and Iron Company to mine coal at Bestwood colliery. The mine became the world’s first to produce one million tonnes of coal in a single year. He also demolished the original medieval hunting lodge and had designer Samuel Sanders Teulon build a new lodge. The mine was closed in 1967, and the country park was established in 1973.

Nell Gwyn: King Charles II gave Bestwood Park to his mistress Nell Gwyn and their son. While staying at the hunting lodge, the King and his guests would tease Gwyn for sleeping late and for not taking part in the hunting. The King was reported to have offered to give Gwyn “all the land she could ride around before breakfast.” The next day, he found her already sitting for breakfast. She had reportedly “ridden out early, dropping handkerchiefs along her route, and the encircled area became Bestwood Park”.

Winding engine house: The winding engine house of Bestwood Colliery in the Nottinghamshire coalfield with its vertical steam engine of 1873 has been preserved to commemorate Bestwood’s industrial heritage. The engine would lower miners into the mine shaft and winch coal back up. It stands at the entrance to the park and is now a listed building. The winding engine was restored with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the council.

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That’s a pretty cool history is it not. And so it’s the winding engine you can see at the start. Hurrah. Good to know these things.

So we walked round, appreciating the outdoor space and sharing parkrun stories. My only regret, is somehow missing the iconic Red Cone, which is so important it gets an actual mention and photo on the Bestwood Village parkrun Facebook page as well as honourable mention in the run briefing. Surely a selfie would have been in order here. Keep your eyes peeled fellow parkrunner, if you find yourself here! Twisting on the dislodged gravel would have been no joke though, but to be honest I found as a walker the paths to be pretty stable, and on a dry day like today not an issue. Even so, stay safe out there!

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I took photos at intervals, but they don’t really do the course justice. I loved that it was one lap, that it undulated. Properly undulated, some people exaggerate or are deluded by the extent of their elevation, but this was proper hillage and up and down. Hurrah. I loved that there were both contemplative woodland paths and more open sections. As walkers, we seemingly had the whole place to ourselves for quite a time, as the faster parkrunners were ahead out of sight, and those comprising the party at the back with the tailwalkers were some distance behind, also out of sight as the paths curved away.

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There are some sections on the way were it seems like there are multiple paths, the main path is usually evident, but if you did go down one of the many alternative routes you’d end up in the right place. A sort of ‘all paths lead to the parkrun route’ scenario. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were always the case? I mean, one day it probably will be, there are after all according to the parkrun website there are currently 1,165 parkrun events around the country taking place every weekend, with more locations being added all of the time. That’s 5k and the 2k junior events, but just in the uk. If you count all of them Worldwide there are EVEN MORE – 1891 different events currently according to the running challenges numbers. And that doesn’t even include those parkruns that have been and gone like Terrific Tring parkrun say. So many parkruns, so little time. I envy younger people who have already discovered parkrun, they will have many decades extra to go exploring in the parkrun world. Yay for them though, the world is a better place for the mixing of parkrunners across the world. There are so many places I’d never have visited and people I’d never have met were it not for parkrun and junior parkrun. I honestly can’t imagine my world without it. I’d still have my tadpoles I suppose, and they also bring me joy, but I’d like to hang on to parkrun in my life too if that’s possible. Even when parkrun didn’t happen during lockdown, and when I was poorly, it was parkrun friends who kept me connected. It’s quite something.

Oh, and there were more kilometre markers for the 5k route. You should so go and do this.

We were so engrossed in chatting, the finish funnel seemed to come into sight really quickly. A full complement of volunteers on guard to guide and welcome us in. I paused to take a photo. Maybe if I hadn’t I’d have got my final parkrun bingo number from the Running Challenges Chrome extension. 4 seconds out. Oh well, I’m almost wanting to be the slowest person ever to achieve the challenge now. I think it might be three years since I got my penultimate number! Also, worth it, to record this vision of loveliness that welcomed us home!

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Just for us! Well, us and the other 120 odd participants. Not that I’m not odd too, but you know what I mean.

All timed in and scanned, we dutifully hung up our tokens on the token board. I still think that’s genius…

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then to the cafe for post parkrun parkfaffery.

OMG. The cafe is amazing! It was bright and clean and run by friendly volunteers. The cake selection was fabulous, but the prices were insanely good value. The cakes are all home baked, delicious and generously sized and 75p each. You read that right seventy five pennies! Coffee or tea was but 50p for a decent filter coffee and a choose your own milk or soya milk. The cakes included vegan and probably gluten free options. It was such a bargain. Oh and behind the counter with it’s many cakes and treats, was a huge wall with old photos of the original colliery workers and houses. The terrace of miners accommodation is still standing and just round the corner from where we were standing. You can still see it, in fact I did, out of my car window as I glanced down the side streets I passed on the way out.

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We found a table from which we had a good vantage point of the automatic doors that require the use of some initiative to operate. I was heartened to see it wasn’t only me who had been defeated by this challenge. At intervals someone would stand bemused at the unmoving glass, and helpful regulars would call out advice on how to exit. It was like a little enrichment activity, and in some ways it was a rather cunning ploy to identify new people to the cafe who could then be welcomed and chatted to – except they were trying to leave so to pounce on them at that point might have tipped over from love bombing into actual kidnapping, so maybe not, but you get the idea. Sort of a variant on wearing a high vis, blue or any other colour, is a signal to parkrunners new and regular alike that you are open to being approached and a friendly face to help if help is needed.

After a bit, we were joined by another of the volunteers, so that was great too, we shared parkrun stories and aspirations, and I also pumped my new besties for advice about what smartphone to go for. I’ve narrowed it down to a Samsung or a Google Pixel, previous issue for both, but still confused. It seems people who know about these things or are youthful (under 30 is youthful from my perspective) whereas people closer in age to me tend to be Samsung. Oh dear. I’ll have to set foot in a mobile phone shop and be bamboozled even further. I hate surrendering myself to such places though, usually ends up with deeper confusion. Still, my walking buddy has made a promise to volunteer at parkrun so I should make the promise to get my smart phone if not this week this month. It was going to be this week, but now we have snow forecast which makes getting out tricky (I live on a really steep hill) and also I’m thinking of getting a refurbished phone and now the new S23 has come out, maybe there will be a little flurry of bargain listings. Also, my head hurts every time I think of going into a phone shop. Then again, just think of the parkrun photos I’ll be able to take. I too may become a legend at Selfie taking – imagine that! And I’ll be able to do barcode scanning on the virtual volunteer parkrun app. I used to love doing that volunteer role. A whole new world of parkrun related adventures will be mine for the taking.

#livingtheparkrundream

Thank you lovely Bestwood Village parkrun volunteer team for making me so welcome, and to my chat buddies I met on the way round at the end, it really made for a memorable and joyful morning. You are the best.

I hope to come back one day, perhaps in a different season, I need to see the trees in leaf, the red cone and check out some of the other cafe options too. So much to do, so little time. Yay for spreading the parkun joy,.

That’s all for now, but as ever, you can read all my parkrun related posts here.  Or not.  It’s up to you.  You’ll need to scroll down for older entries though.  Reading is not compulsory. Thanks for sticking with me though, happy parkrunning adventures ’til we meet again. Hope you find your happy place and may all your paths keep leading you back to a parkrun route – though not in a ‘nightmarish, Escher painting, no escape, endlessly finding yourself back where you started’ sort of way, but in a joyful, ‘make the world a better place’ way, just to be clear.

Phew

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Yay for Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun #3 for a pribbonacci gathering

This is a parkrun that is all about the people. I was twalking again (walking and talking) but saw a comment from a participant on the Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun Facebook page saying how much they enjoyed their ‘chatty pootle’ so maybe chootling is the way forward? We shall have to wait and see. What is clear, is that this pretty new kid on the block laid on a fabulous welcome at it’s super organised and perfectly accessorised parkrun event. It’s just three today, isn’t that sweet? Yet sassy and confident in it’s delivery, which included not only cheery and cheerful volunteers, and enthusiastic attendees but even glorious sunshine. #livingtheparkrundream. Oh, and a ‘Y’ for alphabet chasers – only the second in actual Europe. Which sort of overlooks the fact that alas, we are part of the EU no more, so don’t really feel all that European anymore to be honest, so really England has the parkrun Y monopoly in this area at present. Spoiling us with both a York and now a Yarborough. There was a Yeovil Montacute parkrun at one point, but that is no more. Only the parkrun, not the place, just to be clear. Wouldn’t want you to think there’d been some sort of top secret annihilation of the town that has been all hushed up, there are more than enough conspiracy theories as it is. Mind you, I’ve never actually been, and now I look Yeovil up on Wikipedia I’m not sure it is an actual real place. Key messages include ‘One symbol of Yeovil is “Jack the Treacle Eater”, a folly consisting of a small archway topped by a turret with a statue on top.’ hmm, see what I mean, and other claims to fame include that ‘Yeovil is known in Thomas Hardy’s Wessex as “Ivell”. … (it) … is the location for the fictional School of Lifemanship in a series of novels by Stephen Potter: Gamesmanship (1947), Lifemanship (1950), One-Upmanship (1952), Supermanship (1958), Anti-Woo (1965) and The Complete Golf Gamesmanship (1968).’ I mean, where would a fictional school be located other than in a fictional town? Quite, just sayin. Also, ‘Montacute’, think about it, how can that be a real name? Kudos to those who did manage to bag a parkrun there though, I’d have thought that was pretty much like timing it right to arrive to join in a jig at Brigadoon once in every centur. Respect to those who found it. Today though, was all about Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun. And jolly splendiferous it was too!

This is a relatively new kid on the parkrun block. As one of only two Ys, the launch must have been a bit scary for the team, but it coped brilliantly with its inaugural event. This is a new event that is within reach of Sheffield, so was on my radar, but I was happy to let it settle in a bit rather than crash the first event, even though I did get wind of it before hand. I hadn’t particularly got a date in mind to head over, but then my new parkrun besties from Huddersfield declared their intention to go today, and as I’ve been experiencing MASSIVE separation anxiety since waving them goodbye last week, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass by. Yep, I’d be there. Despite still feeling a bit broken from all the excitement of last weekend and indeed last week.

I was filming again last week, and had an exhausting day of early call time meaning 4.45 a.m. start to arrive at unit base in time for huge breakfast, hair and make up, then in holding on squidgy sofas so bit of a nap, woke up for long enough to compare conspiracy theories (though puzzlingly, we didn’t get onto whether or not Yeovil actually exists) then played table tennis for first time in decades. Turns out it’s super fun, even if you are terrible at it (me, my opponent used to play in a tt league apparently). Do you remember when Boris madly started calling it wiff – waff? What planet is he on? Mind you, that wasn’t the craziest thing he ever said or did to be fair, so let’s keep things in proportion. Then broke for lunch, more kipping, much hilarity with the other extras, trying to spot ourselves in ‘Better’ watching in on fastforward on iplayer, and crying with laughter at our shadowy figures fleetingly glimpseable in the very back of shots only when the frames were frozen brief half hour on set then realeased by 6.00 p.m. #livingthedream I always think a day where you cry with laughter at work is a good one. Remind me to tell you about the job interview I had with Dogs for the Disabled. Only time I’ve literally wet myself crying with laughter during a job interview. Gawd it was hilarious though… Also, I think this means I am officially a professional table wiff-waff player, on account of the fact I was being paid for playing it. I may yet become part of the sporting elite! Hurrah. Anyway, stop distracting me, or we’ll never get to the start line of Yarborough. Here is a sneak preview, just to keep you on board…

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I would be there at the start, I would meet with Huddersfield friends, it would be magnificent, being further broken is but a small price to pay to hang out with parkrun besties. I would get to wear my giraffe llama leggings all over again. Well, strictly speaking I’ve not taken them off since departing for Poland and our epic trip to parkrun Zielony Jay. Why would I? They are the comfiest thing ever, are linked to happy memories, a much appreciated gift and also, I like giraffes. Then again, I don’t think we should have to justify our clothing choices whoever we are. Want to know what to wear? Have clothes? Have human shaped body? Then put clothes on and voila! Job done! Fancy dress is always a good option though obvs, but more of that later…

Shall we start with the official blah de blah? Just for some context? Yes? Good. So, according to the parkrun website:

Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun is a ‘A free, fun, and friendly weekly 5k community event. Walk, jog, run, volunteer or spectate – it’s up to you!‘ and the event takes place at ‘Yarborough Leisure Centre, Riseholme Road, Lincoln, LN1 3SP.‘

The course is described thus: ‘The course makes use of the cycling club’s race track. It is three and a bit anticlockwise laps around the perimeter of the Yarborough fields. Flat and wide tarmac all the way around’ so fairly minimalist, but also fairly straightforward. As long as you can count to three and a bit, which to be fair is suprisingly hard on multi-lap courses, no worries, marshals would be bound to help.

The course looks like this:

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All good!

Early start again, and off out. It was exceedingly blustery out, fallen branches and bins going awol. I had a brief moment of angst re driving, all those high sided vehicles being blown around is a bit of a scary thought. Oh well, nothing ventured. Up and out and satnav on. Whilst I was gingerly venturing out, the Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun team were up and at it!

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The drive was actually ok, it was windy but some sunshine and relatively mild, almost spring like. The only real complication was that my satnav took me the most extraordinary route, maybe my bad because I opted for a route which would avoid paying a toll. I’d swear I went via the channel islands, the Isle of Man and an overnight stay in Dover, before arcing up to Glasgow and making my way back down again. I also got stuck behind a tractor for quite a while just outside Aberystwyth, which is fair enough as a tractor can only go as fast as it can go, but was quite stress inducing. Then when my satnav announced ‘you have reached your destination’ I very clearly hadn’t so had a moment of panic. Fortunately, I’d printed out all the directions and there was a bit of detail

Getting there by road – For SATNAV use LN1 3SP – what3words: ///buddy.humble.above

The leisure centre is on the north side of Lincoln. Follow the A46 around to the intersection with the A15 and turn in towards Lincoln on Riseholme Road (B1226). Yarborough Leisure Centre is half a mile on the right signposted Lincoln Castle Academy.

Plentiful free parking is available at the leisure centre.

Well, the what3words didn’t help on account of being person not in possession of smartphone, but just a bit further on from the garage I’d pulled in at was a large entrance, signed for the Lincoln Castle Academy, and you follow road round to see well signed parking for the Yarborough Leisure Centre. It was a bit tighter time wise than I’d have liked and I was concerned I wouldn’t get a space, but Yay! Loads of parking, even at 8.45. There were plenty of parkrunners still arriving, many a tourist buff, and the excited chit chat of gathering participants.

SO EXCITING!

Amongst those a-gathering were my Huddersfield buddies, they took the precaution of doint carpark selfies, it has to be done. I didn’t though, but did try to do some snaps of the little trek to the start. It’s not especially far, but nor is it very obvious. With so many newbies at present, there were cheerful volunteers on hand to guide the way. There was also a high vis hero to gently steer you away from the leisure centre loos. Panic not though, there are alternative loos near the start in a sort of sports hub. It’s just the leisure centre got a bit overwhelmed by precautionary pee-ers the first week so they’ve made this change. There was even a toilet monitor at the sports hub loos to ensure orderly and fair queuing. Give that marshal an ‘other’ running challenges credit immediately, job well done!

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As with all good parties, I met loads of people in the queue for the loos. My Huddersfield humans were just emerging, and then as I exited, good news and lovely surprise, look what I found:

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Yep, that’s actual Yogi! Smarter than the average bear. It was a great surprise, ‘Yogi’ was actually a rather splendid Humber Bridge parkrunner, who is completing her second parkrun alphabet, only this time in fancy dress, as you do. With the fancy dress costume of choice to start with the same initial letter as that of the parkrun, clever eh? Like I said, smarter than the average bear. I have previous with Yogi, as she was a very attentive and supportive tailwalker at Humber Bridge parkrun back in July last year when I was just tentatively trying to return to parkrun as a walker. That was an especially scary and tough time, and in a way, it’s good to be reminded of this. I still despair quite often at my physical limitations, but actually, compared wtih July last year I have made some progress. Only using one stick and a lot less wobbly these days. It’s hard not to dwell on what I still can’t do, but actually there are things I now can. And also, were it not for my having to come back as a walker, I’d have missed out on connecting with many people who are my twalking/ chootling buddies and my life would be the poorer for it. Perspective can help on a bad day, and on a good day like today, I feel genuinely lucky. Portly yes, but lucky too!

Oh, and fyi, there is no pop up sign at this parkrun, so if you want a location photo memento, then the Yarborough leisure centre sign is probably your best bet. This will, over time I’m sure, become the most photographed leisure centre sign in the parkrun world, possibly the actual world. They must wonder what’s hit them! It’s grand it’s in parkwalk colours, the little details are much appreciated…

Fortunately, the other bears in attendance today, are also a lot smarter than average, so no risk of offence there, phew! Bear Running Club is known for its high percentage of mensa members amongst its number. FACT. Probably. Should be really anyway… I certainly think they are all pretty smart, and that’s good enough for me. Just look at them, intelligence, insight and parkrun positivity pretty much visibly oozing out from their very pores!

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After we’d done some meeting and greeting, it was all a-gathering for the first timers’ welcome. To be fair, there were a lot of first timers, it being a new Y and a prime and a fibonnacci number and all. The cheery RD (who is also an ambassador I gather) helped the first timers welcomer onto a raised step and there was a great intro to the event. All were welcomed warmly, including some actual first time everers, who got a huge cheer – and there was also a welcome for a new arrival in every sense. In attendance was a parkrun newbie who had attended inside their mum’s tum (not anatomically correct I know, but I like the rhyme and you get the gist, she hadn’t been eaten or anything) and then burst out into the world on Thursday, and was now in attendance in their own right, wrapped up warm in a pram with happy parents gazing on. That was pretty awesome. I wonder if this is the youngest parkrun attendee to date, and not to have EVER missed a parkrun even prior to arrival is especially spectacular. I’m all for starting parkrun as young as possible, but this newbie newborn takes that to the literal limit. I wonder how many parkruns they’ll get to during their life time. AWESOME!

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Yogi, who incidentally is a paramedic noted that it would be really cool to assist a birth at a parkrun and who can disagree with that. I wonder if you’d still be able to get your finish token scanned afterwards. I suppose it would depend whether or not the tailwalkers held back for you, that would seem fair. And another huge cheer for the tailwalker resplendent in his 100th different event banner, a true cowell, so that was very exciting. He was a bit sneaky in that he removed his sash on the way around after being nearly garrotted with it twice. I know we should really respect everyone’s right to participate in parkun in their own way, so I tried not to be too judgy but it was only nearly garrotted, and don’t they say ‘third time lucky’. Just sayin. It did make it back on for the photos at the end thankfully. Massive phews all round!

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Just checked the results stats, out of 306 participants, there were 223 first timers at this parkrun and 5 first time everers. That’s a lot of newbies. It didn’t feel like a new parkrun though, it ran like clockwork. The numbers didn’t seem to be an issue – perhaps it feels positively quiet after their inaugural turn out of 449!

It was a such a feel good welcome, everyone seemed in really good spirits, the event team seemed unphased by the numbers, people were greeted from all over Kent, Huddersfield, Hull, Doncaster – and there was an Isle of Man Veteran listed on the results. I could have maybe stopped off en route to pick them up if I’d only known. It was all very jolly. The announcing of it being the number 3 event got a huge reaction, prompting a slightly bemused reaction from our meeter and greeter. Audience participation clarified ‘it’s a prime‘, ‘it’s a Fibonnacci’ and – best heckle yet ‘it’s a pribonnacci!’ And they’ve only just got over the shock of being a Y! I gather that this parkrun is one that is delivered by people who genuinely come from the local community, as opposed to existing parkrunners. Maybe this helps it feel so welcoming and inclusive, they seeme happy to have everyone rock up, proud of their venue and committed to ensuring everyone would have a great time, and why wouldn’t we, it was perfect! The crowd listened with enthusiasm, and attentiveness, this was going to be grand!

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and then there was the RD briefing. He gave a shout out for milestones, locations and a nod to the ‘not mad at all’ fancy dress alphabeteer, as he said, why not? Why not indeed. This was the first time I’ve seen the new dark blue Run Director High Vis, I like it, I get that there is loyalty to the striking monochrome, but really, it’s cool. My favourite remains the powder blue parkwalking volly vest, but I was too late to bagsy it for this particular event. Other quicker off the mark parkwalkers having made it onto the roster first. No worries, my turn will come around again, and I’ll get to wear the high vis at junior parkrun tomorrow. Meantime, check out that merch – missed a ‘Dolly or Bev’ shout out moment there methinks…

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The briefings took place a short way from the start line, so there was a mass walk to the start. I was trying to get to the back of the line up so was in fact facing in the wrong direction when everyone started moving forward. That was somewhat discombobulating, but I was able to re-orientate myself and slot in at the back, alongside my various buddies Yogi buddy, parkwalker buddies, tailwalker buddies, lots of company for the party at the back at this parkrun!

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and that was it, we were awf! The start!

OMG you have to check out this Facebook post with a video clip of the start, just brilliant, thanks for taking and posting lovely Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun team, you are The Best!

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What to say about the course. It’s what it says. A really wide tarmac path track throughout. It makes for a very inclusive surface, easy for buggies, wheelchairs, wobbly walkers, guided runners anyone really because it’s spacious and predictable. You could honestly take a carriage and eight horses round that route, no worries, though I suspect that would count as an assisted run, you’d need to check with the RD, also, don’t take the horse and cart on the running track, that needs to be treated with due reverence. Fair enough.

It was to me a slightly unexpected course in that you are surrounded by houses that back onto it for much of the route, and you go past running track and playing fields and all sorts of sporting amenities. It feels like it’s in quite a built up area, but equally you get glimpses of Lincoln Cathedral at various points on the course. It’s sort of an angular off-set figure of eight. You do the far loopy loop bit twice, then the whole lot three times, so it was a bit confusing as to which lap you are on, whether it is a three lap, four lap or five lap course is hard to say, as it depends what you decide constitutes a lap. Fortunately, there are marshals and signs to assist, and Red Ted was concentrating so able to keep us all on track. There was some outstanding directional pointing going on, some assisted by giant foam hands, always a win at parkrun, and there were juniors on hand to give assistive high fives which was very much appreciated. Massive extra kudos to the local resident who has taken to coming out and giving a cheer to passing parkrunners. This make me a tad emotional, as it reminds me of my mum’s parkrun journey, she started off as a local cheering passing runners, and was adopted by her parkrun family in Bushy park. Check out the reference to Elisabeth’s Corner, marshal point 5 in this run report. I hope that happens here, this woman definitely deserves her own high vis, check out those supportive jazz hands, and friendly disposition, she’s a shoo in as an honorary if not actual marshal!

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We may have struggled a bit with the lap counting, but we did well with the soaking it all up and cheering the other participants side of things. The great joy of having multiple laps, is that you get to see and cheer other people running round, and you are never really alone en route either. |It sort of mixes up all the different speeds of parkrunners in a parkrun potpourri, giving a whole new spin to the concept of parkrun fresh. Fragrant in an altogether different way you see. You spot most people a couple of times at least, and it was all very friendly, and lovely too. I think this is where pictures help. Not mine so much, because my camera needs to retire, but fortunately I’ve freely borrowed from others so you don’t have to. There was an official photographer there too, so hopefully I’ll be adding to this account with other ones in due course, this is the parkrun that keeps on giving!

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So we twalked and chootled and soaked up the atmosphere, and counted the laps, special mention for the intersection which is affectionately known as ‘chaos corner’. Nope, no idea why… good fun though 🙂 You feel like you can see just about everyone at this spot, and the marshal at this point can look one way to see parkrunners scampering around in circles and the other to see a view of Lincoln Cathedral. I know! Splendid.

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and cheered fellow runners and all was right with the world. ‘Suddenly’ we found ourselves approaching the finish. We quickly got in order and processed through with considerable panache if I say so myself. The finish funnel was still surrounded by helpful and cheerful marshals ready to time us in and scan us safely home.

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Thanks, as always, to the amazing volunteer team. And thank you too to my Huddersfield and Humber Bridge parkrun friends. It’s humbling to think of all the people I’ve come to know all over the place, purely because of parkrun. It’s taken me to places I’d never have otherwise visited, and introduced me to brilliant people I’d never otherwise have met. At the end of the day, parkrun really is all about community, for the most part it brings out the best in people, and restores faith in the world. Today was a case in point. Thank you all!

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That was the parkrun part completed, but we still had some quite extensive parkfaffing to do. Particularly we wanted a parkrun photo. We espied some handy steps adjacent to the running trap, and crossed over to pose. This was not the right thing to do apparently, as they are sensitive about who sets foot on this track, something about having the right shoes, and not obstructing runners using the track. Actually, there weren’t any anyway, and we negotiated for a photo op, but maybe be mindful if you are doing the same. We got some fab pics though, and fab memories too, I mean just look at us, in all possible configurations, gawgeous!

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But wait, there was more, then we had to get the obligatory leggings shots:

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and then we had to get the group shot in front of the leisure centre sign. To be fair, it was more arduous than being on set, never had so many cameras pointing at me at one time! Good to capture the memories though, eh?

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We left the team results processing and token sorting in the leisure centre cafe, and went our separate ways. They were happy in their work though, so that’s good.

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and then suddenly, that was that. The end.

But only til next time, obvs. 🙂

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Oh, and as always, if you find yourself at a loose end, you could always browse through all my parkrun related posts here.  Or not.  It’s up to you.  You’ll need to scroll down for older entries though.  But it’s even better if you can get yourself to an actual parkrun near you and experience it for yourself in glorious technicolour.

Thank you Yarborough Leisure Centre parkrun people and parkrun buddies, it was grand. I may well pop back here later on with extra pics and a link to the run report for this third event in due course,

oh, hang on here they are – and here is the event report for the day too. For triangulation purposes.

Here is a little smorgasbord of pics, check out the 2 day old parkrunner doing their second parkrun gawgeous, and the lovely high vis heroes. Each as photogenic as the one before, impossible though that is to imagine!

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So for now hey, hey hey and –

That’s all folks!

Amoozing times at Trentham Gardens parkrun!

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I feel all squidgy and nice inside thinking about this particular parkrun. It was just such a perfect parkrun day. The kind of experience you just wish you could bottle and keep with you to sniff – or indeed snort – in times of need. Such an inoculation of joy was received by all I bet we were still bouncy at the memory of it long after we had completely dried out – which for the record was a very, very long time indeed. Just the slightest whiff from that bottle and the most down cast of spirits would surely be revived. Lo! Even to hear the very phrase ‘do you remember that cowol time we had at Trentham?’ whispering through time and space as a half life memory wi