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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Horton – Here for who? For Nelson! Horton Park parkrun #333

Hordes of parkrunners high hoved to Horton indeed, but friendly ones. Happy hordees if you will, gathering together for who? For Nelson, that’s who! It being all the threes, three, three, three, a palindrome But really mainly just getting together for parkrun day, to have a nice yomp around a lovely park with gorgeous people. What’s not to like? That’s right dear reader, absolutely nothing. Hurrah! No wonder so many of us rocked up for fun times in February.

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The RD is doing an ankle warm up by the way, niche, but might catch on.

You are wondering no doubt why it is that the number 333 rings a bell for you. Well dear reader, let me jog your memory, you will know of course when prompted that ‘Year 333 (CCCXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Dalmatius and Zenophilus’ or the geologists among you (yes, I mean YOU!) might be ruminating on AL 333 – that is the unforgettable “First Family“, ‘a collection of prehistoric hominid teeth and bones. Discovered in 1975 by Donald Johanson’s team in Hadar, Ethiopia, the “First Family” is estimated to be about 3.2 million years old, and consists of the remains of at least thirteen individuals of different ages‘. Impressive as this finding undoubtedly was, we can beat that gathering of thirteen, with a stonking turn out of 151 parkrunners of different ages rocking up for event # 333 at Horton Park parkrun in Bradford. I didn’t bother to work out the estimated collective age of participants, but concede it might not quite be 3.2 million years – but I’d bet my parkrun buff that if you added up all the ages of parkrunners who have completed a parkrun it could reach that figure. Please don’t check though, I like my parkrun buff and would prefer to keep it. Also, I’m not great with numbers, so might not be quite a fair contest. The point is, 333 is a fun number, an interesting number, and a lure to many to seek out a particular parkrun destination.

It is especially attractive to those parkrunners invested in completing parkrun challenges, in this case the Nelson Challenge, which is to complete a parkrun event (or sequence of events) with a number that’s divisible by 111. I’ve covered the accuracy of this nomenclature before when I did a post about coming together at Concord parkrun # 555 so I’ll spare you that again, lets just say it’s somewhat contested, might come from cricket, yet for parkrun Challenge purposes a Nelson it is. It’s also getting a bit angsty over whether or not it’s ok to chase number challenges at parkrun. The argument being that it can impose a huge influx of new parkrunners at events that might not be able to cope with such attendances. I think for the lower numbers it’s less of an issue, as more parkruns keep coming on board, however it’s certainly going to be a challenge when Bushy parkrun hits 999 and then 1000 in consecutive weeks as the first to do so. Similarly the 888s are few and far between at present. I’m not sure of my stance on this. It feels like the challenge is out of the box. Short of ceasing to number the events at all (which some have mooted) I don’t think this is easily undone. I view all the challenges I choose to take part in as an aid to choosing where to tourist. I’ve got into the Nelson Challenge somewhat by accident as I found two close to home in Sheffield, had already completed one without realising it, got an offer of a lift to another, and then found very handily, Horton Park parkrun was offering up the missing link parkrun number 333 just an hour away from where I live. I feel ok with what I’ve done, but not gonna lie, it does make me now want to complete the set, and perhaps that is going to swamp events. I reckon Bushy parkrun will cope, I was there on Christmas Day 2019 when there were something like 2,600 – hang on, I’ll go check – yep 2,545, but with soooooooooooooo many funnel duckers who had to get away for Christmas stuff it was more than that. The event coped really well, but it is exceptional, then again, it’s likely it will mop up the early challenge seekers, and ease numbers for the parkruns that follow. We shall see. It can be a fine line to step at times, celebrating discovering parkruns that you might not otherwise be drawn to, but not destroying the very event you want to enjoy.

Still, back to Horton Park parkrun. Lovely. Nice gates. Not a euphemism, just an actual fact. Yes, I know, my camera can’t cope, I’m hoping to replace at some point, but for now you’ll just have to use the image as a taster to get the gist, and then shifty on up (or down) there to have a looksie for yourself.

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Let’s start though, with the official Horton Park parkrun blah de blah:

Where is it? The event takes place at Horton Park, Horton Park Avenue, Bradford, BD7 3BN

Course Description: This is a 3.5 lap clockwise course all on smooth, wide tarmac paths suitable for prams. The park dating from 1878 lies 1.6 km to the south-west of Bradford city centre and slopes gently up from north-east to south-west. The area is predominantly residential with some industrial development on Horton Park Avenue to the north-east. The start is on the broad central promenade at the top of the 19th century cast-iron bridge which carries the promenade over an irregular lake at the centre of the site, from here head straight up passing formal flowerbeds and the rose garden to the top of the park and turn right onto the perimeter path which gently rises to a peak before descending the entire length of the park past an avenue of poplar trees to the principal park entrance which is flanked by stone gate piers supporting two pairs of late 19th century iron gates. Continue on past the forecourt roundabout, where the path curves round to the right passing the play area and rising round past the bowling greens, an S bend round to the right offers a short reprieve from the climb. Continue on past the basketball court and now grassed former tennis courts where the path curves round to where you first joined it. To finish turn right at the bottom of the park after completing 3 full laps and head up the central promenade where to the right a stream from the lake winds alongside down a stone culvert with a number of small cascades.

Location of start: The start is on the broad central promenade at the top of the 19th century cast-iron bridge.

Getting there by road: Approximately 1.2 miles from Bradford City Centre, follow the A647 Great Horton Road, turn left into Horton Park Avenue, the entrance to the park is on the right. There is ample on street parking on Horton Park Avenue and Powell Avenue.

Post Run Coffee: Every week we grab a post parkrun coffee in our local Tesco café (Great Horton Rd, BD7 4EY) – please come and join us!

and it looks like this:

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Jolly good.

I’m still having to walk, so though I may as well get in touch and offer to be a parkwalker, and was welcomed for the role which is always a good sign. Also a good sign, from doing so it alerted one of the team, who is also a With Me Now (unofficial parkrun podcast) listener that I’d be going. They’d look out for me, we could have a mini meet up, it would be grand! I choose to think of their proactivity in noting I’d be there as being a good thing, a testament to reaching out. It was not at all that I had triggered some sort of public health alert scenario their end, with damage limitation and managing the situation safely being uppermost in their mind when reaching out. Yay for meeting fellow parkrun passionistas! parkrun people who live in your laptops but you’ve not yet had the joy of meeting up with.

On a more serious note, Horton Park parkrun had to cancel a couple of weeks back due to lack of volunteers. They’d done the usual multiple shout outs to no avail, and eventually had to make the agonising decision not to go ahead. There was some negativity about this along the lines of ‘why not do a shout out on the day’ but this response rather missed the point that some parkruns – increasingly since the pandemic – are spending hours and hours putting out appeals, begging almost for volunteers and this is demoralising and unsustainable. Last minute offers can be too little, too late, and waaaaaaaaaaaay too stressful for event teams to manage and it is very time consuming to keep on checking and making shout outs right to the wire. Ultimately, parkruns are community events, they need the communities they serve to get involved in delivering them too. Obviously not everyone is able to volunteer, and volunteering should not be compulsory, but events don’t happen by magic and so it’s important people think of stepping up now and again to keep them alive. For me, the tragedy is that volunteering at parkrun is not a sacrifice, it can be super fun, you see the parkrun from a different perspective and can get the whole parkrun joy without having to actually charge about. It astonishes me that some parkrunners have yet to embrace this, and it saddens me hugely that so many parkruns seem to be struggling of late. Maybe the awful truth is that it takes a cancellation for some to wake up to the notion that their parkrun needs them to volunteer too. Horton Park parkrun is a small event really. The average number of finishers being 62.6, so that’s not a huge pool to draw from. However, Endcliffe parkrun in Sheffield had to cancel last year due to lack of volunteers despite having 457.2 average finishers each week. It can’t just be about the numbers taking part, something else seems to be happening. This situation just makes me incredibly sad. Individual parkruns get cancelled but worse still, core teams burnout, jeopardising parkruns entirely. Saddest of all though, is that people are missing out on the joy that is volunteering at parkrun, it’s an actual FACT that volunteering makes you happy. The converse is true too. You know like in Peter Pan, when everytime someone says they don’t believe in fairies one falls down dead right then? Well it’s the same for parkruns too. Everytime someone declares ‘parkrun doesn’t need me to volunteer‘ or ‘volunteering is not for me‘ (without any particular reason why) a little bit of the parkrun spirit dies too, and core teams retreat, feeling battered. That’s what it can sometimes feel like anyway. Whatever, I just really hope people who maybe haven’t got around to volunteering yet at their event do so; or maybe introduce a non-running friend to parkrun so they can join in and be part of parkrun as a volunteer. Volunteering on a regular basis brings its own joy. You might even end up with your own corner on a course, and you’ll definitely get an appreciative round of applause at the start of every parkrun. Just do it! I mean look at the volunteers at this event for instance, jumping for joy and they’ve not even started the morning’s parkrun yet. Can hardly contain themselves. This could be you! Wait til you see how happy they are at the end. Those endorphins can last all week, swimming around your system powering you through.

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And you think that’s happy. You should have seen them buzzing with endorphins at the end.

This photo was taken by a rather excellent volunteer photographer by the way. He made a point of gathering the volunteers at the start and taking a photo of us all together by the Horton Park sign to show where we were. On reflection, it would have been good if one of us had been holding the day’s newspaper too, so we could prove the date as well. It is a nice touch, I love group photos of this ilk, it helps build the volunteer community. He did one fairly standard photo and then one of us looking altogether more cheery. Hurrah! Nice touch, great pic. Actually, there were lots of great pics from today, which is handy as my own photos were, erm, let’s go with ‘sub optimal’.

Oh, and by the way, if you need encouragement to volunteer, check out Sherwood Pines parkrun volunteer appeals, they are brilliant at expressing the joy! Give that Facebook communications person a cheer! Loving their work. Worth following their page just for a weekly chuckle, even if you can’t get to run their, though it’s a fab parkrun too for the record. High time I went back to Sherwood Pines parkrun for another yomp round, it was one of my favourite courses.

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Back to Horton Park parkrun though, because that’s where we were experiencing the parkrun love today.

I did my usual thing of setting off paranoically early so arrived at the park in good time. There was loads of parking, even allowing for it being a larger than usual turn out. I could have parked right by the very impressive gates, but wasn’t quite sure if that was allowed, so followed the actual instructions and popped myself on Powell Avenue, where, at that time, I could have the pick of positions. What joy!

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It was surprisingly nippy out, so I had the usual pre parkrun faffery of deciding what to wear, and then I ventured into the park to explore. As before when parkrun touristing, I was really taken aback but the grandeur of the park. It had mature planting, a huge, wide central avenue, little bridges and hidden gardens with fountains – switched off at present, but no doubt spectacular when going. Sadly, there were signs warning of bird flu in the area, and maybe that’s why some of the little waterways were empty, I wonder if they are trying to discourage birds from gathering too much. There was also a weird structure of tree roots apparently covered in tarmac. I can’t be sure, but I wondered if this was the remnants of a fossilised tree. The only time I’ve seen anything similar was at another Bradford Park, at the Precious and Rare Bradford parkrun in Lister park, so that would make sense. Gotta be honest, it looks a bit underwhelming as displayed at present, but if you think about it a bit more, what a mind blowing thing to have in your local park. 330 million years old potentially, if we decide it was actually 333 million years ago, and I think I have now decided that, what a brilliant segway back into Horton Park parkrun #333. Phew. And you thought I was getting distracted again didn’t you! Oh ye of little faith!

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Because of arriving early, I was before the volunteer team had set up, so I went for a little wander about, and then met someone who looked very much like – and indeed was – a fellow parkrunner, who pointed me back to from whence I’d come, which is the rendezvous point for volunteers. So basically, the volunteers meet near the main gates of the park, and then the first timers welcome and RD briefing is held a bit beyond the park steps. The start being a little further along again. It’s not a huge park to be fair, and there is very little chance of missing the parkrun unless, like me, you are there ahead of them 🙂

Very soon though, parkrunners started assembling, cones were being carefully placed, high vis handed around and the usual buzz of meeting and greeting as everyone gathered. Tourists too, I was found by my parkwalking buddy for the morning, another tourist along with the tailwalker. They were walking ahead of a 10k race not a run tomorrow so happy to walk at today’s parkrun not parkrace, so that was good. Oh, and I found or was found by, fellow With Me Nowers, and spotted the distinctive WMN merch on the RD too, so amongst friends, albeit ones I hadn’t met yet. Oh wait, and there was a Huddersfield parkrun buddy, not seen since Hillsborough parkrun #444, and another who was at Zielony Jar parkrun last week, the week after me and the others. Did I mention when we went, one of our party lost her barcode, so I choose to believe this other Huddersfield parkrunner made the trip particularly to see if it had been found and pick it up. It hadn’t been unfortunately, but she had a very nice time at the parkrun anyway, just so you know. So many stories to share, although annoyingly conversations were inevitably only half finished as is sometimes the parkrun way. That’s ok too though, it’s always good to leave your both a parkrun, and your audiences wanting more!

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Roles allocated, ‘official’ volunteer photo taken albeit not everyone could be included as some were already busy undertaking their duties, we started to wend our way up to the bridge. More meeting and greeting went on, I always feel a bit emotional at this point, so many connections being made or renewed. Oh, and also, a rather splendid barkrunner, with own bespoke hi-vis, always a win. And even time to pose for a few group photos. I never saw the pop up sign somehow though, probably too busy chatting. There is one there, perfect for that team shot if you are so inclined.

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I somehow missed the first timers’ welcome, I think because I was slow joining the throng from the volunteers photo. I know it would have been excellent though, how could it have been otherwise. Then the RD did his briefing. Welcoming people to Horton Park parkrun #334! See what he did there! Hilarious. Well, it should have been #334 if they hadn’t had to cancel, so just a reminder. That’s a With Me Now hoodie he is sporting there – you can see it in full glory on this fellow WMNer who did the first timers’ welcome, albeit it was a shame he had the wrong lettering on the back of his.

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A printing error surely? #sitdownnotcooldown. They say you have to respect the right of everyone to participate in parkrun in their own way I know, but just saying I doubt very much the RD would have made the same mistake, although maybe it’s just as well you can’t see that under his rather fine monochrome RD high vis… New blue RD high vis is no doubt incoming. Quite possibly at a parkrun near you too very soon, if not already.

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There were the usual thanks and milestones and loveliness, and then we gathered for the start, and everyone ready? Timers ready? Awf!

I tried to take some pics, and then joined as a walker towards the back of the pack, quickly drifting to the tailwalker. It is a weekly irritation that even my walk is so slow. I am generally very much better than I was, and almost sprightly at home and on the flat, but I still can’t walk very far or for very long time wise, and cold weather doesn’t help. I’m a little more hopeful than I was that the summer may bring some improvements, but I found walking this particular route felt a stretch. I think a combination of the cold, and a slightly faster walking pace than I can maintain. When spring finally properly is sprung, I plan to try to get out and test myself more, but I need to feel confident it is safe to do so. Back to parkrun though, Horton Park parkrun was go, and go we did!

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What a fine body of parkrunners in action we were! All of us. Yes, you too, if you were there, or even if you weren’t – all parkrunners are fabulous always and so are parkrunners yet to be. It’s only a matter of time before you join the happy throng I’m sure 🙂

The route is pretty straightforward, although it being a multi-lap course, you do need to be able to count to three preferably, which is harder than you think. Don’t worry too much though, there are lots of marshals around who as well as being exceedingly good at directional pointing and cheering, can also count to three – perhaps even beyond! There was no need to test the latter competency on this occasion, but I reckon they very possibly could. Stars, each and every one.

I tried to get photos of each of the marshals en route. The cheery top of the hill marshal who’d lost her signs but not her enthusiasm. The chilly duo who were good spirited despite having to bounce up and down quite a lot to keep warm. The ones at the bottom of the hill to cheer you round again or back up the hill to the finish funnel depending on your lap quotient, the solitary smiley marshals oozing enthusiasm and authority as they managed their spots solo. The ones not small but far away, and the close to the hive of activity at the finish funnel marshals at the end. Then there was the photography marshal, and the cheery marshals and everything and everyone in between.

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off we went, soon the two parkwalkers and tailwalker found ourselves in step. The rest of the pack being far ahead. It is a lovely park, and the snowdrops were amazing at this time of year. Mature trees abound, I saw catkins which are always a particular joy. We were cheered by passing parkrunners lapping us as well as the marshals at intervals on the course. It had a good friendly vibe, much parkrun positivity was bursting out along with the spring bulbs. I’d swear the sun even came out briefly, possibly also following the ‘always leave your audiences wanting more’ principle no doubt. The volunteer photographer was on hand to capture the whole occasion. All the photos for Horton Park parkrun #333 are up on the Facebook page but here is a smorgasbord to save you the exertion of having to click on the link. Oh, and I included a couple of mine too, but I don’t think you’ll struggle too much to work out which are mine and which are his.

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We walked and talked – twalked, and chatted and pootled – chootled round. Even though there were three of us we did get a bit discombobulated about how many laps we’d done, but don’t worry, completed the course most satisfactorily in the end. Don’t worry though, even though we were kept busy twalking and chootling, we were sufficiently alert to our surroundings to strike a pose for the photographer on our way around. I’m not even going to try to pretend we weren’t fussed about having our picture taken! Fabulous though aren’t we? Three volunteers for event #333 I like this photo, even if it does make me look like a jumbly. Or maybe I do look like a jumbly and the camera has just captured that reality, oh well, it’s still a fun shot, and jumblies have their own charm too. Plus, I’d happily go to sea in a sieve if I thought that sieve would take me to Bere Island parkrun, so we have much in common. More in common than divides us in fact, as the saying goes.

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The route goes round the outer paths of the park, and takes in some Yorkshire flat. It isn’t massively steep, but if you were running, as opposed to walking, I think it would feel like a fair old climb as it’s quite a distance up hill, but then you get to run down in on the other side of the park, so swings and roundabouts or ups and downs, it all levels out in the end. On our final lap, some of the marshals walked companionably along with us for a bit before they headed back down the central path to the finish funnel. Meanwhile, faster parkrunners sprinted home, captured with flying feet, flailing arms, smiles and grimaces all by our heroic photographer. Action shots are The Best! Not everybody demonstrated all these things, but there is always next week to complete the challenge, should you choose to accept it. Good luck!

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And so the time came for us to pass up the finish funnel to the chorus of cheers from the timers and finish funnel managers and scanners all still in place. There were a few stoical, supportive parkrunners still milling around, and enough volunteers for a further photo op. Hurrah!

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And that was that, time to pack up and go home, and think of ideas for the inevitable caption contest photos that would be incoming later on.

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All in all, a pretty fine parkrun. There was just one critical incident, which unfortunately probably would have had to be reported to HQ, but these things happen. It was bungate.

A kind parkrunner had some particularly impressive buns. S/he’d brought them along to share in order to celebrate either the 333, or touristing, or a milestone, or just to be nice – some people are. Anyway, because the photographer was busy with their camera, his special bun was carefully placed to one side, to keep it safe until he could step down from his duties, documenting the parkrun. At the very end, as close down was underway and high vis tabards were being gathered and cones and other parkrun paraphernalia collected together on a handy bench DISASTER STRUCK! His iced bun did a kamikaze topple, iced side down (isn’t that just always the way) tumbling over in slow motion to gasps of horror from onlookers. Gutting.

I think there was talk of salvaging the situation, or replacing the bun, but that must have hurt. Hopefully there will be future parkruns with future offerings by way of recompense. In the circumstances, it was most fortunate that the photographers blood sugar levels sustained him for as long as they did!

And so it was time to disperse. I did get a kind and sincere offer to join the team who would be gathering at their local Tesco up the road for parkfaffing purposes. Possibly results processing and all those things too. Alas, I couldn’t stay this time, but it’s always really nice when teams or locals do encourage people to join in for the post parkrun catch ups. After all, as we all know by now, parkrun was always about the coffee.

Thanks you Horton Park parkrun for the warm welcome to your lovely park. It was a great team and a friendly vibe. Your snowdrops are breathtaking and fossilised tree roots a one in a 333 million year spot. Yay you. Hope our paths cross again some day, but in the meantime yay for keeping the parkrun love alive, well done on you #333 parkrun, here’s to the next 333 million years. I wonder if any parkrun memorabilia will last that long. A golden barcode from a parkrun pioneer perhaps, or just the parkrun spirit, leaving it’s aura behind wherever a parkrun has been run, in perpetuity. That would be nice.

So there we go, that was that.

But only ’til next time. See you there! 🙂

Of course 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. And check out the Horton Park parkrun photos for event #333 in case you think I’ve missed out the best ones, which is quite possible, as it’s sooooooooooooooo hard to choose which ones to include!

Don’t worry though, I remembered to include this one of the WMN mini meet up, yay, I did spot another WMNer en route in the photos, but they had vanished by this point, we held the in our thoughts though, so that’s ok!

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ea-Zee does it Zielony Jar parkrun

I might burst. No really, I was just so excited at the prospect of getting to Poland, not just to bagsy a Zee, but to go adventuring and to meet with international parkrunners AND get to know my new parkrun besties from Huddersfield parkrun a bit better. Not gonna lie, a bit apprehensive, but mostly super keen. Not scared just EXCITED. Eazee to confuse the too.

Look where we went, and it was all I hoped for and more! Oh yes indeedy, simply the best, as has been sung before!

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But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start. The plan came about from me being introduced to some llama leggings I think. Something like that anyway. I was at Huddersfield parkrun for their 500th event, with my giraffe, as one does, and met up with friends I hadn’t made yet but felt like I knew already. Shouty Lady – to whom I’d given a shout out in a remotely written run report for Endcliffe parkrun back in October 21, little imagining one day we’d be off on a parkrun holiday together – , a friend of a friend parkrun ambassador, oh and a fellow parkrun tourist who I’ve met a few times but forgot had Huddersfield parkrun as her home event. Anyway, turns out they are all huge fans of llama leggings and – get this – even though they are called llama leggings they have actual giraffe ones, that pretty much have my name on them, what with me and my emotional support giraffe Geronimo often to be found hanging out together. Honestly, I’m not quite sure how we went from that exchange, to planning a trip to visit a parkrun Poland, but it will be both parkrun logical and parkrun inevitable to most parkrun passionistas. Essentially we bonded over parkrun, fancy dress and fabulous leggings I suppose, and one thing led to another. It is the parkrun way. In our case, it led to z-chasing in Poland. Hurrah!

I just, sheep-like, went along with what everyone else suggested. We want to do the same things anyway, and with a parkrun at the epicentre of our plans there was unlikely to be a clash of priorities. We settled on Krakow. Basically, it was easy to get flights to there from Manchester, and once landed there were many parkruns in reach – including a Z – so less angst inducing if there were any cancelling on the day. Hurrah. Then we found a date and ‘suddenly’ it was booked and happening. Turns out, there are a couple of fabulous organisers/ leaders in the Huddersfield parkrun set, and who am I to undermine their talents by showing any initiative? Without followers there would be no leaders after all, and I was only too happy to oblige. Yes, I do worry sometimes where my compliance might lead, but so far it’s led to fine adventuring and unexpected turns which has enriched my life rather than leading to my joining a cult. Unless you count parkrun as a cult of course? But it’s clearly #notacult because I’ve been told that, a lot. And even if it is a teensy bit, it is for the most part a benign one.

Our destination would be Zielony Jar parkrun. Fortunately, google automatically translated their official parkrun webpage with information about the course, and better still, the translation is absolutely adorable, just look at their official webpage blah de blah:

route description – The route consists of four laps leading through two parks “Zielony Jar” and the Pocket Park “Osiedle Na Stoku” along paved alleys. The start and finish are in the same place, ie at the stage/amphitheater in the “Zielony Jar” park. The meeting place for participants is located near the start and finish. The profile of the route is slightly demanding, because the sum of the elevation gains is almost 80 meters.

Amenities – The covered stage in the amphitheater allows you to hide your personal belongings. Near the start there are exercise equipment, a children’s park (swings, slides, merry-go-rounds, etc.), benches with tables to rest, a fenced football/basketball court and an outdoor children’s pool.

Launch location – The start and finish are located at the stage/amphitheater in the “Zielony Jar” park.‘

They have a launch location and an amphitheatre, this is going to be splendid! There are tables you can rest at and an ice cream parlor. Why let snow get in the way of frozen treats after all.

Wait, there’s more – the course looks like this:

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In the spirit of just going along with what everyone else was doing, and knowing I’d be walking anyway, I got in touch with the team by email to offer to volunteer. SUCH A POSITIVE RESPONSE. Even a blue heart emoji, this is living the dream in terms of anticipatory parkrun positivity!

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Just when you think you couldn’t love them any more! They also forewarned me – with a twinkle in their eye (can an email have a twinkle? I’ve decided that Yes! It can!) that this is the ‘most difficult parkrun in Poland‘.

Oh. Really? Erm, wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but hey ho. And wait? What fresh joy is this. ZUMBA! Granted, they were apologising for the lack of it, but turn that on its head in a half full rather than half empty way, this means that this Polish parkrun has a Zumba warm up role as part of its weekly parkrunday offer. This is beyond awesome. Look! The camera never lies, these are from the parkrun Zielony Jar Facebook page so it must be true! And what’s more, is that actual snow I see. OMG, this is the parkrun that keeps on giving. Cold might not be super fun, but snow very much is!

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I was pretty sure we’d be able to improvise something as an alternative. Zig Zagging on the icy paths perhaps? We would see…

One thing was for sure, this parkrun party was happening. I did have some moments of wondering if it was maybe a bit weird to go away to a foreign land with people you hardly know, but then again, once you have a parkrunner’s Athlete ID that’s all you need. Some Tralee parkrunning friends of mine said their only thing they needed to know about their offsprings’ potential romantic partners was whether they were registered parkrunners and what their home parkrun was. Fair enough. Besides, past experience strongly suggests I’ll be the one with the peculiar eccentricities, I’m pretty sure I snore for a start, I have perfected all sorts of amusing and diverting/decidedly annoying* (*delete as appropriate) tics from living on my own unchallenged for decades and what’s more, I’ll certainly be the slowest out on course, so more of a risk to them than they to me :). To be fair, this very concern was shared by one of my most recent house guests. Have I mentioned recently that I rent rooms out to people working at the Sheffield Theatres? It’s been life enhancing on the whole, so many anecdotes created and shared. Anyway, one of my most recent lodgers arrived with a day in hand so I insisted on taking him out to Stanage Edge because I think a trip out to one of the peak district’s most iconic edges should be mandatory for any first timer in Sheffield. It was as we were driving out to the moors he commented ‘my mum wanted to know how I could be sure you wouldn’t murder me?‘ Leaving aside my abject horror at being old enough to be a parent to this grown up, I had to point out I’d not previously considered this, but now he came to mention it…. Stranger Danger is still a thing apparently. Anyway, I don’t think of a mandatory trip to the Peak District as abduction as such, more a public service. And he didn’t put up all that much of a fight, even though it was a bit of a squeeze in the boot what with all my litter picking paraphernalia already in there. There were even paragliders when we got there, just like in this photo taken by the amazingly gifted Phil Sproson – it’s from October last year. Sometimes I can’t quite believe what glories are just a few miles away from where I live. Get out there and stride about people, it restores the soul.

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Back to Poland!

Acknowledging we’d not really met up before, we were hoping to gather at Scunthorpe parkrun early in the New Year. Not just for the smutty words parkrun challenge (childish but true) but reachable for them from Huddersfield and me from Sheffield. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, snow and ice and scary driving conditions meant I bottled it. Oh well, we’d meet at the airport – except – spoiler alert, we had a pre meet! Very excitingly, when I headed to Sheffield Castle parkrun who should I meet, but one of my Polish bound parkrunner buddies bearing gifts. She was volunteering as tailwalker and had espied me on the roster too. I had employed no such initiative, so was hugely, and pleasantly, surprised to see her. The gift she bore was in the form of llama leggings, which confusingly, in fact had actual giraffes on them. Unlike llamas (and alpacas and guanaco and vicuna and camels) Giraffes aren’t even part of the camelid family, though weirdly the latin name for the Northern Giraffe is Giraffa camelopardalis. Weird. Oh hang, OMG there was yet more, llama leggings with giraffes on them AND a matching scrunchie. We would all have them, it would be our matchy matchy kit, and to be honest, I was almost as excited about getting to wear my leggings for the first time as getting a z for my parkrun alphabet! It took not inconsiderable willpower to hold back from wearing them straight away I don’t mind admitting.

And then we were on a meet up roll. Next stop Nelson 555 at Concord parkrun and then all over again at Hillsborough parkrun #444 we really must carry on meeting like this. It’s fab.u.lous!

And then, finally it was nearly time to go. What to pack? As little as possible, I’d travel in my parkrun gear, and Red Ted was attached to my walking pole. A million barcodes, a smothering of thermal underwear my favourite hat, and that was about it. At last, the morning dawned – early rise as off to Manchester airport paranoically early. I’ve never driven there before, and didn’t really want to, but there would be no trains after my flight back, so it was drive or have to sort out some accomodation.

Up, and finally, I got to officially wear my llamaleggingswhicharen’tllamasatallbutgiraffeones #llamaleisure

Oh. My. Gawd. About the leggings, before I tried them on, I couldn’t really grasp why people rave about them so much and have so many different pairs – a pattern for any and every occassion. Once I’d had a little go – just to check they fitted ok obvs – I totally got it. Soft and comfy and with pockets. Of course you’d want loads of pairs! Then again, once I’d put them on in the morning for this Polish trip, they have stayed on 24/7 ever since, so maybe the real question is why would you ever need another pair when once on, you don’t want to take them off. I’m now a believer, and happy to be 25% of the legs of Llama Leisure’s recent Facebook post, which immortalises our Poland parkrun jaunt in the marketing archives of llama leisure. It’s a start on the pathway to worldwide fame I suppose. After all, I’m in most excellent company! All I need now is a discount code, and to be persuaded to change into a new pair of leggings. The thing is though, I do really, really like the giraffe ones. Nothing beats having the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on earth etched on your legs after all. Well, actually, having a family of warthogs might, but inexplicably I don’t think they’ve got around to doing that print yet. Never mind, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, if they want me to endorse their merch, there needs to be some give and take on both sides. Still, fabulous pins all round though I think you can agree. We rock this look like a hurricane! Plus, easy to find each other at the airport.

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I was really worried about the drive to the airport but in fact it wasn’t too bad. I’d prepaid for parking but was thwarted on trying to enter the carpark as the number plate recognition didn’t work. No worries, I had printed out my booking form and buzzed through to the nice man who lives in the carpark. I confidently stated my situation, and after some faffing, he asked me to repeat my number plate again, which I did. Oops, that’s not what I’d typed in with my fat fingers apparently. Oh well, a little token popped out like a copper coin from a penny arcade only more plasticy – this would allow me to exit, and up came the barrier. I had to drive around for ages, sweating, before finally finding one last space which was a really tight squeeze as it was sandwhiched between what were essentially two monster trucks. What I’d have done if there were no spaces at all I just don’t know, it was precarious, but hey ho, in safely. Really short walk to the terminal and phew, I was in.

I was also ridiculously early, so settled down for a wait, exchanging messages with the Heavenly Huddersfielders to get real time updates as to their progress.

SO EXCITING.

And then, at last, we were all together in the giddying embrace of Manchester airport, which was a lot nicer than I remembered it. Then again, last time I went it was pretty much post apocolyptic hell on earth, mid rebuild – possibly even a differet airport. Now it was all spacious clean and even had places to sit! I’m sure there was a photo of Red Ted and RD Ted checking out the departures board, but I can’t find that now, they were excited too though, fyi. Anyway, cue photo dump of excitedly gathering at airport. Turns out, waiting at an airport is waaaaaay more fun when surrounded by parkrun buddies than when all on your lonesome. Who knew? Oh, and wait, I do have photos, thanks to emergency rapid response facebook messaging service! Phew.

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What’s that? It seems to be taking me rather a long time to get to the actual parkrun? Dear reader, you think the waiting is bad! Try being us in the weeks between booking the flights and making it to this point. I have missed so many planned parkruns due to pandemic (Poland; Malmo and a gazillion cancelled uk ones); surgery then illness I was in a state of permanent heightened alert in anticipation of some unexpected horror that might have prevented us from going. I’m sure you can cope with a few minutes of delayed gratification. Delayed gratification is totally not my preferred thing either, but sometimes needs must. Incidentally, did you know that being unable to delay gratification in anticipation of a greater reward later on is associated with psychopathic traits according to some research. Just sayin’. Sociopaths and Psychopaths r us would have to fast forward. Even so, worth mentioning you don’t really have to wait, you can always just scroll down to the ‘good bits’ – assuming there are some still to come, but honestly, at this point, who knows. In fact who amongst us ever really knows anything at all now I come to think of it. So many mysteries in life…

Where was I. Oh yes, about to board a plane.

Guess where we were going! Only actual Krakow in actual Poland!

We were protected for our journey not only by our parkrun wrist bands, but some wrist band keep sakes supplied by one of our number and chosen with great care. Thank you :). So one of us supplied llama leggings, one supplied personally chosen wrist bands and one basically booked all the accommodation and flights. One of us didn’t. But they did remember to pack Red Ted and bring along a copy of ‘How parkrun changed our lives’. Maybe it was a case of from each of us according to our ability. I felt somewhat lacking in terms of my actual contribution to be fair, but I did bring along considerable gratitude and enthusiasm, and perhaps that counts for something too! Oh no, another missing photo of our wrist bands. You’ll have to just take my word for it. This is terrible though, it’s like we are actually supposed to remember things in our head, instead of having lots of pictures on our facebook pages. This is like the bad old days when great swathes of our history went undocumented for decades at a time. I mean, some things can be communicated, but if I don’t find a photo of that little dog we saw… it frankly doesn’t bear thinking about! Some things just have to be seen to be believed. If you know, you know!

The plane journey was for the most part unremarkable, though not the smoothest of rides. And although I say ‘unremarkable’ it is actually pretty remarkable that we all piled into this little aluminium or whatever tin can thingy and flew through the air up high and landed the other side of the sea, so let’s not take such daily minor miracles for granted shall we. Then we arrived! It was cold, it was dark, but we were here! Snow on the ground, well what was once snow compacted into mucky icy patches, but you take my point. Super exciting. Part one of mission Zee accomplished. The llamas had landed!

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The next challenge was getting to the apartment. There is a taxi rank right where you arrive, but instead we went for the uber option. This seemed like a grand idea, but because of the veritable army of vehicles about, it prooved incredibly difficult to spot our actual uber, not helped by our traipsing off in completely the wrong direction to meet it. When our driver and we finally met up, he was decidedly grumpy. Turned out, this was because the confusion meant he’d stayed too long in the pick up area so had to pay extra on exit. We paid the fee in cash (I say ‘we’ but I think we all know that I wasn’t massively proactive in sorting any of this). Our ambassadorial leader sat in the front trouble shooting, and the rest of us squidged companionably in the back of the taxi peering out into the dark and cold night.

The journey wasn’t all that long, and was fun because we were all together, but would have been angst inducing alone. It was pitch out, and for reasons I still can not entirely fathom because it was different on the return, our route out from the airport took us down seeming dirt roads where we bumped about alarmingly. Maybe this is what it felt like for my lodger in the boot of my car? Split four ways though, the 20 minute journey was super cheap – £10.40 in total. So no brainer to get an uber really, hassle free option, I daresay others have done things even more cheaply by public transport, but I was happy to get into a taxi and be magicked to our destination.

And what was your destination? I hear you cry. Well, it was an apartment, picked for being not too far from anything between old and new towns and pretty near the parkrun too. There were detailed instructions of how to get in on arrival. Well, that all looks jolly straight forward, hurrah!

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Teensy problem, on arrival, in the pitch dark, it seemed a somewhat sinister location. Think atmospheric film set for some sort of dark, edgy thriller. Nobody is coming out of this alive. Graffiti daubed buildings, and huge thick inpenetrable doors with grids and brutalist overtones. If I’d been on my own I’d have cried and wet myself. Getting in, was a challenge worthy of any escape room. There was a code by the intercom, but in the dark it was nigh on impossible to read, and it took several attempts before we made our way through the door…

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… and into a freezing hallway which seemed like we’d entered a parallel universe and found ourselves in a long derelict building in a different time zone. I couldn’t fathom if it was times long gone or a future age where all that remained of once grand buildings were screaming ghosts and half formed memories. Never mind, it would be fine. There seemed to be loads of keysafes at every doorway we came to, we tried our second code on each ane every one. Nothing. Zip. Just endlessly rolling numbers like a broken one armed bandit. This did not bode well

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We staggered to the end of the hall, and to yet another door Passing through and found ourselves in a sort of hidden courtyard. Hurrah, surely this must be where we were supposed to be. A huge rusted iron spiral staircase towered up one side, abandoned bikes chained to it’s base. It was atmospheric, but unnerving. We found the next door ajar and entering went up some steps. More key safes. It was like trying to find the holy grail in amongst all those storage containers at the end of whichever Indiana Jones film that was! We found a door that looked like it should be ours, but no means of entry. We scurried up and down stairs and passages trying the entry codes everywhere but to no avail. I stepped back a bit and watched the adventure unfold. Not sure what I could offer in the way of practical assistance, I went for the keeping out of the way option. After all, a wise woman once said ‘it’s not helpful unless you are actual helping‘. I have found this to be good advice, too often unheaded! As I was gazing about, I espied a further hidden keysafe we hadn’t yet tried. Why would we, it was adjacent to a completely different door to the one we actually wanted to enter. I punched in the code without saying a word, after all, what were the chances I’d be lucky where so many before me (well, three to be precise) had repeatedly failed? Well dear reader. You won’t believe this only you better had… it was like Arthur removing the sword in the stone, there was a distinctive clunk and the key toppled from its hiding place into my hand! I felt like an absolute conquering hero. Of course it was unadulterated genius on my part, and not at all an accident of fate.

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Not gonna lie, a bit of a collective sigh of relief too. We were tired from our travels, and it was just borderline getting to the not actually very funny any more stage. Phew, we were in!

Oh wow, it was like entering another world. The apartment was properly amazing. Boiling hot, immaculately clean and extremely well fitted out. Fancy furnishings, including a weird feathered light fitting thing. Oooh, this was a proper adventure. Honestly, if I’d been coming alone I’d have played it safe and gone for a hotel, but this atmospheric, beautifully equipped apartment, now we were actually safely in, was way nicer and a lot more fun. Hurrah! Almost a shame we’d hardly be in it. There was one room with two double beds, a further room with just one double bed and then the living room had a sofa which opened up into a small dble/ large single. Well lush. So cosy as well, I couldn’t believe how much heat was blasting out. I could totally live here, at least until spring anyway.

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We explored the flat, oohed and aahed over all the soft furnishings, divied up the rooms – I got one to myself #livingtheantisocialdream and then after some generic faffery, we opted to head out for the evening for some gentle exploring. None of us wanted a late night, but we did want to explore a little and get something to eat.

We headed down the stairs, and were spat out of our spooky looking apartment onto the icy streets – after we’d worked out how to get out of that huge door again. This was even harder than getting in, did survivalist preppers work out the entry system for this building I wonder? I had to pinch myself at being actually in Poland. The walk was brief, we passed by some cannabis shops – is that legal here then? ‘Medical’ CBD presumably is – and nearby was a marijuana light variant on offer, presumably for any weight watchers out there.

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When we arrived at the main touristy old square it was gorgeous. Stunning architecture surrounded the square. The outer areas of the square were filled with brightly lit outdoor covered restaurants with surrounding greenery making it look positively christmassy. As we walked along we were greeted by various people trying to entice us in. It was clearly very touristy, but you know what we were tourists and it was very nice. We eventually did pick one and pile in and tried dumplings which were properly amazing mushroom filled morsels of delight. The veggie options weren’t brilliant, but the soup I had, mushroom, served in a bowl carved out of lovely bread, the ultimately comfort food. Lovely. Periodically, blanket covered tourists taking rides in the back of horse drawn carriages clip clopped past – the horses, not the tourists. It was all very atmospheric. We wandered back, gazing in awe at the towering basillica and other extraordinary buildings that surrounded us, I had no idea that it was such an impressive city. My bad.

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We were happy bunnies indeed.

Back to our temporary home, and then it was but one more sleep before it was actual international parkrun day. What’s more, it would come around even more quickly than usual, because the clocks had all jumped forward an hour. I know, this was the trip that kept on giving!

So we went to bed, and then we woke up and it was PARKRUNDAY!

It was an early start, but we were all super excited and bouncing about in our matchy matchy outfits in good time. We fell out into the street, admiring our digs in daylight, and onto the pavement outside awaiting our second uber of the trip. The Happy Huddersfield trio took the opportunity to do quite a major workout to keep warm. Surely this would have more than made up for missing out on the parkrun Zumba for this week. This Uber to parkrun was £7.25. Bargain.

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It’s weird being driven about and not knowing where you are going, we ended up being dropped off near a load of high rise flats in the most unpromising of locations but uh, ok. Quick snoop about and then, OMG a parkrun flag. This is really happening now. SO EXCITING!

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By the way, have you noticed our matchy matchy apricot parkrun tops to go with our matchy matchy llama leggings? It just seemed appropriate for our journeying to wear ones from our home parkruns in the UK. One of our number was sad because she had got jam on her apricot tee and it was now stained. However, turns out – get this – it is actually stained with jam that landed on her top whilst at the parkrun ambassadors’ conference last year, so it is in fact parkrun ambassadorial jam, quite probably parkrun ambassadorial apricot jam to boot, so if anything, that enhances her top rather than detracts from it. It’s practically a sacred artifact now, certainly iconic. She should probably frame it for safekeeping, but having said this, I was super excited to get to see that parkrun tee for myself. Sigh, it’s basically like being anointed with apricot jam, very special indeed. And doesnt the high vis and Run Director wonky bear set it off beautifully? Hurrah!

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We couldn’t scurry our way down to the park quickly enough. Soon we were greeted by the sight of an arched erm – well I guess ‘amphitheater’. They had a similar one when I went to Hasenheide parkrun in Berlin, I’d never seen such a structure before, but maybe they are a think in this part of the world. A huge stage with a sweeping arch of heavily graffitied concrete at the back and sides creating shelter of sorts in a brutalist way. The back drop was of bare black trees and the remnants of snow, giving the space a sort of monochrome look. However, as is the parkrun way, little figures in high vis, burdened with cones and signs were busying themselves about the park getting the course set up.

We were actually, properly here! I thought I might burst. I never really thought this day would come! We were pretty early, and knowing overseas parkruns often operate on a ‘just in time principle‘ in relation to turning up, it was impressive to see such activity early on. We were all massively over excited. Imagine a small child on a sugar and food colouring high who has just snorted a line of caffeine and sherbet and bounced around on a trampoline. Got that? Well, that was nothing compared to how excited we were, you need to multiply that by a gazillion and then quadruple it, because the energy and excitement sparked between us like electricity pylons, still live, falling into water. Nobody in the world has ever been more excited than we four this morning. And I’m including when I got a high five from Harry Gration at the start of the Sheffield Half Marathon one year. I know. That excited. Hard to believe. Scary perhaps too, but true!

After a little hesitation, partly due to ice and snow, we scampered down a little slope to the amphitheatre area. Oh my, so many things. Same but different. The lovingly laid out finish line with tape. An actual parkrun urn! Sweet treats as well. A selfie sign, welcoming volunteers. Oh, and signs, so many customised signs to explore. We were warmly greeted by a lovely volunteer who apologised that as we were early their official translator hadn’t yet appeared. She did this in perfect English pretty much. I never even learned to say ‘thank you’ in Polish. It is both handy and mortifying, that for the most part, those we met had near perfect English. I felt shamed at my inability to speak only English, and frankly that often eludes me in times of need. The absence of the interpreter did not stop play. We launched ourselves into photo taken, high vis grabbing and selfie posing. Just like every parkrun everywhere!

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This was beyond excellent, but wait there’s more. Check out the signs, each a new cause of delight and celebration, but one in particular delighted me beyond all the rest. Here be squirrels, not just grey squirrels but actual red ones. If I could see one of them it would be the cherry on the icing on the cake, but surely too much to hope for. Still, no harm in doing some posing. Then we did posing with the volunteers. Then more tourists arrived, I think it ended up about half tourists from the UK and half authentic Polish parkrunners. Some had come on public transport without difficulty, and one couple had also had a bit of a performance getting into their pre booked apartment. Perhaps it is some sort of informal initiation ceremony or rite of passage for incoming tourists? Then our interpreter arrived, a junior with a huge enthusiasm for speaking English and coming to England one day and using an oyster card and travelling on the tube. I wonder why an oyster card is such a cause of fascination, I was kicking myself for not having brought one with me. I had one in my wallet but discarded it as unnecessary to take to Poland so nearly did have one to pass on. It was amazing to have someone to explain and interpret. The welcome was just extraordinary. I think the team may have been a bit bewildered as to why we were all coming over – especially as right now it is winter so in their eyes not massively appealing (in our eyes, there be snow and it be cheap) but they were so up for it. Could not have been more warm and accommodating. They joined in the posing and photographing too. All possible variations were snapped I think before we were done. Here we go, feast your eyes on these shenanagins:

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The sun was out, our hearts were full. The ground was packed with ice. We were told again that this was the toughest parkrun in all of Poland, I was struggling to believe this. I think they must have meant in relation to elevation, but the park seemed pretty flat. For us Yorkshire lasses it takes more than a bit of an upward flat section to scare us – that ice though, the Event Director amongst us remarked she’d have had no hesitation cancelling with similar conditions at home. Lucky for us she was tail walker and not RD here today!

We had a bit of a confab about what to do with the parkrun book, magazine and parkrun lanyards. We’d assumed we’d pass them on to the event RD but we weren’t sure where he was. Also, we didn’t know who it was who’d sent the cheery communications in advance. Oh the angst of it. In the end, we decided to pass them on to the lovely woman who had made us so welcome at the outset. Communication was a bit random, but she was super chuffed to receive the book on behalf of her parkrun. I’m not sure how they’ll share it around, or whether it will be launched round Poland as the original book did for Eileen’s bookrun relay, first during the pandemic a tag team delivered it from her home in the Lakes to PSH himself in Bushy park. Then other books have been journeying around the uk, it’s rather grand. You know what though, it doesn’t matter, it was just brilliant to have thought to bring something. Granted, part of the reason I thought to do so was because of the spectacular fail at Amager Straandpark parkrun where only one of the hundreds of visiting tourists had thought to bring a gift, and it seemed such a great gesture. Anyway, it was well received and again photos! We all inscribed the front cover, along with our parkrun id numbers. One of us, not me, had the simply brilliant idea of transcribing the polish for Caution Runners from their parkrun sign and adding ‘English’ in between. Creative genius she is.

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Wait though, there is a follow up for this, I let Eileen know about how I’d passed on my copy of the book whilst in Poland and how well that had been received, and she was so thrilled we not only made her bookrun relay Facebook page (that’s twice we’ve been Facebook famous in just one weekend) but also sent me a new inscribed copy all of my own. I was beyond thrilled. I’d resigned myself to having to buy a new copy but now I have one anyway AND it’s especially for me. Hurrah. I do feel like I ought to have a whole boxload of them, to distribute when touristing. So well received. Maybe I can stockpile the parkrun magazine instead, there are still copies kicking around and they weren’t produced outside of the UK as far as I’m aware. Anyway, check this out – the pic with all the inscriptions from parkrunners is especially cool:

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Are you still here? Oh good, I thought you might have given up on me with all this faffing before we even get to the run fun director’s briefing. Few basics. I don’t think there were any loos, we went just before coming and were ok, thankfully. There is a trolly in which you can leave your bits and pieces and which is also the start and finish area so feels pretty safe, there are always volunteers there. Arrive with time to take lots of photos. Expect to be welcomed with sweet and coffee. I was too worried about needing a pee to take advantage of this but it is a lovely tradition. It is a small parkrun in numbers although as has already been demonstrated it has a big heart. When we were there there were plenty of parkrunners around who could communicate in excellent English so it’s not a big culture shock. Having said that, the real beauty of parkrun internationally, is that you can rock up at a new event, and because it operates more or less the same way at every location – barring a few bits of personalisation and charming quirks that make each venue unique – you don’t need to worry too much about not understanding everything, as long as you have your barcode and aren’t expecting to be first finisher (I wasn’t) you’ll be reyt. There is some elevation, but not so as you’d notice by Yorkshire standards, the snow and ice though was a challenge. The field of participants was small, and to be honest, the regular Zielona Jar parkrunners were more the sporty athletic types who lead the field at UK events. They were definitely serious runners. Very friendly, but I don’t know quite what they made of a quartet of slightly hysterical middle aged women arriving, three ‘just’ to walk and one to go for it with more gusto. We made up the tailwalking/ parkwalking team between us, sort of marshaling each other.

After a bit we had the RD briefing/ first timers’ briefing. Our interpreter whispered his translation specially for the British/ English speaking tourists. The book got a shout out. We were told it was 4 and a bit laps. We were reminded it was the toughest parkrun in all of Poland.

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We gathered at the start, and soon we were off!

The fearless locals sprinted ahead, compacted ice and snow hold no fear for them. I was stomping along at the back, still in awe of actually being there, and wanting to inhale each and every moment. The course I found a little confusing, but not sure why. There was only one marshal, all the volunteers had multiple roles – so the interpreter was also time keeper and scanner too I think, and the person who received the book, set up the course and took lots of photos, also was the marshal on course. Small but might team here. The course was well signed, as as a four and a bit lapper, other parkrunners pass you which was jolly. It is a little pocket park of sorts, the trees against the snow looked impressive and gave it a more wild feel than you might expect from the urban surrounds. Food had been put out for birds, of which there were many. Snow on the ground was atmospheric, ice on the paths was scary. Weirdly you run past what are essentially corner shops, which were shut when we first arrived, but had clothing and cabbage displays outside as they started opening up around the time the parkrun began. There was so much to look at, it was all very distracting. A friendly vibe. We made slow progress, but in our defence, we kept being distracted by exciting things. There was the turn around point where we met up with our actually running Huddersfield parkrunner, and all the things.

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You know what, it was just like a ‘normal’ parkrun, except we were in POLAND!

The first lap I started heading towards the finish area as I’d assumed we ran past that each time but no! I was shooed away, ‘it’s a four lap course’ they called out to me. Not mistaking me for first finisher then. The second lap we were really delayed though because, guess what we say. Only ACTUAL RED SQUIRRELS. OMG I nearly wet myself I was so excited. They are super cute. I love my chunky grey squirrels at home, but there is no disputing the delicate beauty of these tufty rodents. Although ‘red’ they were so dark, they looked almost black.

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As we passed at the end of our second lap, I was trying to communicate about having seen the squirrels and there was some crossed communication meaning that my enthusiasm for what I’d seen was taken as confirmation that we were embarking on our last lap. We weren’t. Oops.

There were consequences from this, as we came round again, they tried to call us to the finish, and we had to persuade them we knew we still had another lap to go. Not gonna lie, they were a bit uncomprehending about this ‘that’s impossible’ came the shout back. I don’t think they are used to walkers being so slow. They weren’t being stroppy, but just concerned we were going wrong on the course and further than we needed too. I think with their regular participants being very much runners rather than walkers they couldn’t entirely compute our speeds. Still, all good natured. Especially as by now they were pretty cold and we’d got their hopes up that we were nearly finished earlier on. All my bad. Oh the shame!

Off we went round again. We met a confused marshal who was mid course take down and completely mortified when she realised we were still out there. It was fine, we knew the way and I knew it was me who’d created the misunderstanding in the first place. Honestly, you can’t take me anywhere! Then again, if it weren’t for me finding the keys, we’d still be stood outside that apartment block, trapped in limbo and by now definitely needing the loo, so swings and roundabouts eh. Also, others stood as human cones to guide the way for our final lap. It was all exceedingly jolly and joyful! What larks eh.

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The last lap though – or was it the penultimate one? Actually, I have no idea, it’s all a bit of a blur, all that running round in circles I expect, and gazing about. But, those of us who were chootling (chatty pootling) at the back saw the most amazing thing ever. This image will be seared on the back of my eyeballs for ever. It is the stand out extraordinary sight from this Polish parkrun, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen bar none! This dog though. Had to be seen to be believed. Here the pictures have to do the talking, words cannot convey nor reproduce the impact! Those little feet though, in their little shiny shoes. Poor pooch! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both. If ever you need taking out of yourself, just save these pictures to go back and look at from time to time. I defy anyone not to be distracted from their darkest thoughts by this extraordinary sight!

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and finally, back through the finish to great cheers of relief as much as respect, to be timed and scanned and welcomed home. Job done!

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Weirdly, it felt a bit sad finishing, I’m really suffering from separation anxiety at present, maybe I’ll grow out of it one day. The core team busied themselves putting stuff away. And it was time to wave goodbye.

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Pretty much everyone else had dispersed at this point which is their bad because they missed out on more fun things.

Specifically, snow angels! I couldn’t be surrounded by so much snow and not indulge. Our interpreter was making his way home across the park and accompanied us on our search for the perfect spot. He waved goodbye and we espied a bank. It maybe wasn’t my brightest idea to get myself up there, but it was one of my funnest. I did my best in the snow, which was a bit too compacted for full effect, but you get the gist I’m sure. On reflection, possibly should have got my agent to veto the less than flattering angles, but all the best human self expression requires you to give of yourself utterly. Why not my snow angel as well?

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And then it really was time to go home. An uber back to our apartment cost but £6.50. Crazily cheap, but confusingly differently priced. We were back in not time and trundled into the apartment to change before heading out again for post parkrun breakfast. Turns out, it was just as hard getting into our apartment in daylight as it was in the dark, but we managed. We headed off to a coffee shop at the end of the road we’d spotted the day before. Red Ted was somewhat shocked by some of the street ornamentations…

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The breakfast we ha was pretty sensational, excellent coffee and huge breakfast portions. Hilariously – for us, not for him – there was another uk visitor in the queue in front of us ‘have you been to parkrun?’ he enquired. ‘why yes!‘ we chorused with enthusiasm, ‘how about you?’. Poor guy, he’d come all the way to Krakow with his family, was a keen parkrunner and just hadn’t thought it would be doable to combine the trip with a parkrun. He looked a bit crushed as we were the personification of what might have been. So near and yet so far. I guess he’ll just have to come back. To be fair, I’d like to come back again as well, so not too much of a hardship.

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They really know how to do a toastie, pretty much a scooby snack in truth, and all the better for it!

And that was that, parkfaffery concluded. For now.

Oh, and I nearly forgot one of the other best bits from doing a Polish parkrun – you get your results email and ‘thank you for volunteering’ emails in Polish! Well of course you do, it being in Poland and all, but it sort of added to the thrill of the adventure. Hope you get a new language in your parkrun results emails one day too!

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You can as always continue your parkrun pondering if you wish by browsing 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 forward for more recent ones.

It was not of course the end of our Krakow adventure, but I won’t go into that here and now. What I will say is that we loved exploring the city on foot. We did take a tour out to Auschwitz and Birkenau on the Sunday. Of course that was a complete change of mood, and difficult though important to include.

We found the castle, the cathedral but alas no dragons. I lost my favourite hat in a coffee shop, but mercifully it was still there where I’d left it the next day, which whilst reflecting badly on the attention to detail there cleaning wise, was a joyous reuniting for me.

Get yourself to Poland. It really was the most extraordinary trip. It felt like we’d been away for ages, but really it was just within a weekend. It was fun connecting with new people, and of course it was nice to bagsy a Z, yet ultimately, if it were not for parkrun I’d probably never have got around to visiting Poland and taking the sobering trip out to Auschwitz either. parkrun tourism might provide the catalyst to go exploring, but the ripples from such adventuring go so very much wider.

Thanks so much to the Polish parkrunners for welcoming us with such enthusiasm, I hope so much they make it over to the UK one day and experience similar hospitality, they certainly deserve it and some. Thank you too my Huddersfield buddies for letting me gatecrash your parkrun voyaging, it was The Best. Special thanks to the taxi driver who did a kiss and fly drop off for us on the journey home. Lovely touch!

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Here’s to future adventures.

meantime, here’s a smorgasbord of snaps just to whet your appetite…

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You’re welcome 🙂

Thanks for staying the course.

Hanging out at Hillsborough parkrun #444

Today was all about hightailing it to Hillsborough parkrun.

Although this is one of my locals as a Sheffielder, to be honest, I’ve only been the once before. I didn’t have a particularly good experience. There was a very competitive local running club there out in force and it was very bargy, as a multi-lapper I got shoved off the paths a few times and came away with quite a negative view of it. However, on reflection that was back in 2016 – almost a year to the day in fact as I actually went 30 Jan 2016 which is a pleasing factoid. Things change over 6 years, I should keep an open mind. Anyways, the incentive to drag my weary carcass there was largely that my new Huddersfield Besties were making the trip for the second Nab A Nelson Number Opportunity in two weeks, as it was to be – and indeed actually was – event number 444. I guess that makes it a NANO and as it was the second one, an actual nanosecond! The last opportunity being Concord parkrun #555 just last week. I know, spookily close together! You wouldn’t want to miss one of them, even though it’s actually very, very easy to do, on account of the fact a nanosecond is actually pretty small, and whizzes by very fast indeed. This nanosecond would not elude us though, oh no indeedy, we’d be there! Love a shared adventure!

Quite a lot of other people had the same idea of Nabbing A Nelson if the turn out was anything to go by. Third highest number of participants to date, and the event coped really well. Next week is their turning ten anniversary, I wonder if that will bring another influx. They have promised cake, that can incentivise some I know… Not too shabby a turn out this time round though at 627 parkrunners completing the course, and a zillion volunteers supporting them, including a photographer who took some fantastic shots, including this one, that’s a great many parkrunners I think you can agree:

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I got in touch to offer my services as a parkwalker as there were none on the roster and I’d be walking anyway, or as a second tailwalker as often two people undertake that role. I got a very gracious response, but it still basically indicated that the event chooses not to have parkwalkers as the three lap nature of the course means there are always other parkrunners around and the tailwalker and marshals can support any walkers during the event. They did not require a second tailwalker. I did find this more than a bit disappointing, as I think the blue high vis is also about making walking at parkrun visible, and turning away volunteers is always a shame if there are unfilled positions. It made me a bit apprehensive about going as I was unsure it would be in fact be welcoming to walkers if they are not accepting the parkwalker role as valid or necessary. Oh well, soon find out.

Back to us though and our shared adventure or ‘Five go wild at Hillsborough parkrun’ as my Huddersfield friend recounts it. A great improvement on the original Enid Blyton offerings, updated and inclusive is the way forward, yay for going wild together.

It was colder than expected heading out first thing. I had to wear my actual thermal base layer, I was quite pleased to have the opportunity to do that to be fair as they are newish and properly lovely and toastie. That was a clothing win, but I had a few fails. Specifically, I forgot my warm hat. Worse still, I remembered it, and then must have somehow dropped it going to the car as it was nowhere to be found on reaching my destination. I also found my watch hadn’t charged up, so I’d have to do a naked parkrun! To be fair, after my initial discombobulation and panic, I rationalised it that as I only walk now there is less fun in tracking progress, and although I crave my elusive last bingo number, knowing your gps time rarely helps as there is often a discrepancy between my run times and parkrun finish times, so even if you are within a whisker, those teasing seconds can be spirited away in the results processing. Sad but true!

I arrived early at Hillsborough park as I wasn’t sure of the parking situation. In fact there were loads of spaces, so many I did that thing of getting really indecisive about which spot to choose for ease of access to park and minimum awkward manoeuvring on departure. You do have to pay for parking but it’s modest, and very handy. FYI as I was leaving, it was getting busier, there was a football match going on and there was a crazy amount of on street parking and I think they were restricting access to the carpark to football officials. It was fine earlier though.

It was a crisp sunny morning, with the early morning sunshine so bright it almost dazzled. There were some slightly dodgy frost bits of path. As I sat in the car I watched some serious running training going on in front of me. There was a group of runners of all ages doing loops of the park in a group, a coach on a bicycle was keeping them together and encouraging them to sprint at the final section of the circuit. It was good watching them, even though I was horrified to think they were doing this INSTEAD of an actual parkrun despite being in the park at just the right time. There were dog walkers, some distant high vis volunteers with signs under their arms heading off into the distance, and a parkrun flag, right at the entrance to the park, hurrah. It’s always a cheery sight.

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I entered the park by the flag and headed off confidently up the modest hill – more of an incline really, towards the play area which is where I remembered the run briefing and start had been located previously. I was impressed by the actual playground monster that looks to gobble up wayward children, and my have accounted for the emptiness of the play area in general.

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The park was a lot lovelier than I remembered. Lovely mature trees;, a great many squirrels; a lively bijou lake with swans, and ducks and geese; the play area; newly tarmaced paths. It was well used too, with lots of comings and goings, and a lot of parkrunners seemingly heading away from the start area to get in a warm up lap before the event got under way. Actually, really a lot of parkrunners now I come to think of it. Pretty much all of them. They must be keen these Hillsborough folk? There must be a new running club challenge or something… Oh hang on. I turned around to look back from whence I’d come and admire the view, and espied the massing of parkrunners right next to the carpark. Oh. How did I miss that? In my defence, as I headed in there can’t have been that many gathered, but there were probably a few. I guess things change in 6 years. Who knew? I made my way back to the start, styling it out by taking photos from afar as I did so. They aren’t the best photos (same old story, annoying camera limitations) but convey the mood quite well I think. Also, it’s actually incredibly thoughtful of me to do these epic fails so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

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and as I walked towards the throng, I spotted the running brooms, hard at work on their latest vlog – always worth a looksie, and then what vision of loveliness was this? None other than my llama loving Huddersfield friend, resplendent in lock down bespoke apricot tee, coming towards me like the golden orb of a rising sun, or something. Hurrah. Wait, there’s more! She was not alone, but had a car full of Nelsoning comrades, hurrah, the more the merrier, also, huge kudos to Huddersfield parkrunners for buddying up for their tourism so effortlessly. I’ve still not really cracked that skill, I tend to tourism on my own and hope to meet kindred spirits on arrival, which is splendid too but in a different way. They were cheery and friendly and obviously we used the opportunity to capture the moment, and share our leggings and ooh, look there’s a pop up banner and all the mandatory selfie things. I say ‘we’ but as ever, I out sourced this element of the occasion to those with long arms, selfie expertise and smart phones. Delegation is a handy skill at times, know your limitations dear reader, it’s best in the long run for all concerned.

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Always good when a plan comes together.

We did our meeting and greeting, and then a call went up from the RD – I think the RD but he wasn’t wearing regulation high vis. I think the kit is changing over from the black and white RD vest to a new unsponsored blue version and for whatever reason they hadn’t got it. Rumour has it, he prefers the old version and wanted to give it one last outing, but then today ended up with neither over confusion of what goes where. Bottom line though, if you have a megaphone at a parkrun event people will obey you, quite frightening really. Anyway, first timers and tourists were encouraged to go over to the tennis courts for the official welcome, and so we did. And we all stood about staring at the volunteer we surrounded. She seemed happy to wait for everyone before starting, always good to be patient. My, she was patient. After a bit, it dawned on both her and the first timers circling around her like sharks that she had no idea why she had become the centre of attention in this way. That would account for her benign yet bewildered look. Turns out, someone else entirely was doing the welcome, and though yes, she was indeed by the tennis courts, there are quite a few of them and she already had a respectable gathering of newbies to Hillsborough whom she was briefing so hadn’t realised that loads of us were in completely the wrong place. No worries, we all traipsed round to join them, and she explained the essentials again. Gathering data about who had travelled the furthest, and milestones along with communicating basics about the course. Three laps, keep left is the gist of it. Can you tell from the photos which was the official briefing and which the decoy one? Also, very cute beagle, and also, how did I miss that helpful sign earlier? Though what happened to parkrun aowalc (all one word, all lower case). I was not having the most observant of days it seems. Slightly worrying, what else have I missed? Not the very cute beagle at least, that’s something.

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Just so you know, if there is one thing cuter than a little beagle, it’s a little beagle meeting up with its beagle buddy a bit later and both beagles being beyond excited at the reunion! Awwww. For those of you who have barkrunning companions this is a very good dpm (dogs per mile) parkrun. Thanks to dumbrunner for introducing me to this helpful metric. I’ve only recently stumbled on the Dumbrunner Facebook page and some of the content is hilarious. Gentle humour, but gets to the truth of running for many of us I feel.

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In case you weren’t there for the briefing, or were there and couldn’t really hear, please find following the official website blah de blah:

Course Description: A separate starting & finishing straight is in the centre of this three lap clockwise course. We start near the gates from Penistone Road to Hillsborough Park ? this is a flat start which takes you on the central park path to the corner by the children’s playground. Turn right and then follow the new paths around the main event square. Make a left turn when you pass the car park and go around the tennis courts and then past the new bike park. A small incline past the duck pond takes you to a bend & past Stephen’s Corner. Follow the path for a second small climb, make a right turn and follow the path over a rise and back down to the children’s playground. At the end of your 3rd lap, fork right and go back down the central park path with the finish near where you started. Please keep to the right-hand side on the finishing straight, following the signage and guidance from marshals as appropriate.

Facilities: Parking: The main car park is charged at 90p per hour. Limited on street parking is available in designated parking bays (either 1 or 2 hours free, depending on the road). Please be considerate to local residents.

If using SATNAV, the nearest postcode is S6 4HD.

Post Run Coffee (shame I didn’t read this before hand to be honest, oh well): Every week we grab a post parkrun coffee in one of the following nearby cafes. The cafes around the park aren’t large enough to accommodate everyone but you will find parkrunners in: Costa Coffee, 301-305 Middlewood Road, Hillsborough, S6 1TG – Depot Bakery, Coach House, Hillsborough Park, Sheffield S6 4HD – Riverside Café, Catchbar Lane, Hillsborough, S6 2LX – Jam’s Café, 181 Middlewood Road, S6 4HD – please come and join us!

and it looks like this:

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The park is a decent size, and to be fair, very much nicer than I’d remembered, but it is still a city park, well used and fairly compact. I didn’t need the loo as I went before leaving the house, but I don’t recall seeing any in the park, stop off en route if you are a tourist from afar I think.

Next stop, loose assembly in the start area. It was busy, so even though the RD had a megaphone, we were too spread out to really hear anything very much. There was a bit of chatter, but with that many people it would have been a challenge even without that. I did gather that next week is 10th birthday week so empty tables will be there for people to deposit celebratory cake and treats on. There was a guy taking part who was practising and raising awareness for his world record attempt at running a marathon (London) – dressed as a life guard raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust & the Little Princess Trust. If only I could remember his name. There was also a large group of Hallam Student Nurses, and no doubt many milestones and volunteer thanking as I joined in with enthusiastic clapping at intervals without quite knowing what I was applauding. In some ways this worries me, you can see how people get swept up in rallies and things, fortunately I think I can endorse parkrun ideals for the most part without being led over to the darkside so much as you would notice.

I tried to get some shots of the assembled company. I think the phrase is ‘good in parts’ but I do like the one of the tailwalker surveying the filed of parkrunners from behind if I say so myself. Oh, and is that a With Me Now t-shirt I espy? Missed out on my ‘Dolly or Bev?’ shout out to this parkrunner. Personally I’m more of a sitdown than cooldown fan, but each to their own eh.

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Pleasantries and necessities completed, it was off! It was a busy field, and I was well towards the back, and fairly quickly at the actual back with my Huddersfield companion alongside with her dodgy knees, and the tailwalker just behind. Given how many people there were it was a courteous and sedate charge forth. Lots of cheery thanking the marshals as we past. This parkrun has some excellent signage to help explain things, one of which is a reminder to call a thank you to volunteers which is a lovely touch. I meant to take a photo of it, but clearly didn’t, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

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It is a multi-lap course so you do get lapped. There are lots of jolly marshals round and about, and although you do have to squish over to the left at points to allow others to pass it was all pretty good natured. Faster runners shouted encouragement and there was no barginess that I experienced. Phew. It was great to have a twalking (talking and walking) companion. We mainly talked all things parkrun. The pros and cons of discontinuing selfie frames. They have been withdrawn ostensibly because they have the wrong sponsors on them now, but I don’t think they are being replaced. I suppose it’s not that environmentally friendly to keep reprinting them with each new sponsor, and they were never all that robust. I have noticed some parkruns Charlton and University Parks parkrun to name but two, have started making their own bespoke selfie frames. These are great, but not an option for all. I like the idea of characterful unique ones at different venues, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, new dinky pop ups are springing up, literally and figuratively. They are tiny! Check out this image lifted from social media – it really is tiny not far away! Hilarious!

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Probably a lot more practical, but I shall miss the dance display of those who fold up the pop up sign now the smaller format will make that a lot less challenging and therefore potentially less of a spectator sport. And they call this progress! Oh well, we must make way for the new.

My photos on the way round weren’t all that great, but I did my best. I love it when you see streams of other runners ahead of you in the distance, like some extraordinary and colourful train or wildebeest on a massive migration, wildebeest in Lycra obvs, which is a bit alarming, but you get the idea. Point is, parkrunners, as far as the eye can see, streaming over the horizon… and then circling back again. Can you have a murmuration of parkrunners? Nice spectacle anyway.

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Fortunately, there was a proper photographer to take proper photos, they give a good sense of the event I think you can agree. Thank you volunteer photographer, you are the best! Pretty sure there’s a caption contest in there more than once, oh, and spot the lifeguard parkrunner. That float is probably an asset to the health and safety measures on the course what with all that cold open water around the place. Happy to say it wasn’t necessary to deploy it to rescue anyone today #goodtoknow See what I mean about the dpm too? A barkrunner friendly course for sure.

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We thanked the marshals and interacted with some. Stephen wasn’t at Stephen’s corner today, but other lovely volunteers were, so that was good. The high vis heroes were all lovely obvs, and all extraordinarily photogenic as always. You think you’ve found the most striking one, and then the next one appears, even more resplendent in their radiant pink to match their radiant smiles. Yay for volunteers everywhere, for making the parkrun magic happen.

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With it being a multi lap course, we got to pass the finish line more than once. It was good to see the faster runners coming through, less good to find the course blocked by finished runners standing chatting en the route. Fortunately, I had the solidarity of my excellent twalking companion and the tailwalker too, but please, if you have finished your parkrun, keep the course clear, it’s horrible having to push your way through like a portly cat stuck in a cat flap. Humiliating even. It was ok today as I was feeling resilient, but it is the kind of thing that can really make it feel like you don’t have the right to be there as a slower participant. Just sayin.

On a brighter note, check out these sprint finishers, granted, not me, but other people, going for it, love a good sprint finish.

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I do love a good sprint finish, but we two twalkers opted instead for the solidarity of crossing the finish together. Hurrah, very comradely.

Then, much excitement, lots of familiar faces at the finish. I think I don’t know anyone, but I suppose over the years I have got to meet quite a cross section of the Sheffield running community one way or another, and it was excellent to find these two at the finish that I’ve not seen since we volunteered together at the Round Sheffield Run a couple of years ago. Excitingly, no VERY EXCITINGLY they have both entered for this summer, indeed, so has one of the Huddersfield Four, so this is excellent. I do feel more than a pang as I realistically am not going to be doing that, but I am excited that maybe I can volunteer again instead and I’ll know loads of people. They are doing the Saturday (parkrun clash alert) very first wave. What, the very first one? No, that’s the elite wave. The very first wave for people who are not the elite and want to have as much time as possible to get around. That would be my preference too. To be fair, they might even have a whole extra 24 hours as the event happens over two days, but they’d need a head torch and to carry extra provisions for that. Good news though! Those RSR tees are collectables. Check out the runner flaunting his winter edition tee en route today. I totally have running tee envy! Maybe again one day…

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And that was it, all done. We regrouped and pondered. We got an official Hillsborough parkrun portrait, always a win!

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What should we do about post parkrun breakfast. I don’t know this parkrun but I had heard amazing things about the new cafe and reckoned that might be a good option, as we were last to finish I thought queues might have subsided. We faffed about whether we’d got enough time in the carpark, but decided to go check it out. The Huddersfield lot didn’t want to hang around too long and risk a parking ticket.

I say they didn’t want to hang around, but then we got distracted by all the camouflage nets and the adult playground area, and so immediately had to do a lot of not so much hanging, but hilarious if ineffectual dangling and swinging about. It was really good fun, I wasn’t really dressed for it, and my fitness is shocking but such joy. Definitely allow yourself extra time for a post parkrun swingfest if you are coming this way!

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It’s true what they say about the best things in life being free. I’d go further and say the best thing in life is free weekly timed, but you can have both, hurrah!

We finally made it up the hill and into the Depot café which is the newly refurbished Coach House an amazing building in its own right.

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OMG! The food and baked breads looked amazing! The coffee smelt fantastic. Unfortunately, there was an hour wait for food, and even for take away, so we abandoned it. To be fair, the café had possibly been caught out by the extra influx of runners. Also, I now know, that if I’d bothered to read the notes properly in the first place, the café can’t cope with all the runners even on a usual saturday morning, so the core team tend to head off to a nearby Costas. I think I’d still prefer the Depot, but maybe in the summer when waiting is less of an issue. The hedonistic Huddersfielders stocked up on some amazing cheese and chilli or somesuch sourdough loaves as takeaway, and we chomped on that as we returned to the car park. It was sad to say goodbye, but I know our paths will cross again very soon and VERY EXCITINGLY. It was lucky the bread came in a paper back to breath in to calm ourselves ahead of what no doubt lies in store!

As we ambled back to the car, I got the inside info on how their running club came to be named, get this, it was because it was misheard. Was supposed to be Arcade Beers Running Group, but someone heard it as Bears so Bears became the associated animal for the group. Excellent. No need to be scared of bears running in Huddersfield, they seem a cheery and friendly lot. Phew.

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And then time for goodbyes and to wend our ways homeward.

I’m glad I made it back to Hillsborough, it is a lot friendlier and indeed more picturesque than I remembered, and it was lovely to see some familiar faces I’ve not seen in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages, as well as a fair few nanoseconders for the consecutive week. It remains a multi-lap course which isn’t for everyone, but they clearly know how to throw a party if their bigging up of their tenth anniversary celebrations next week are anything to go by, so why not give it a whirl and judge for yourself.

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Oh and for triangulation purposes please follow the links for:

Running Brooms Hillsborough parkrun #444 vlog

Hillsborough parkrun Facebook page report for event 444 of on the News Pages Report #444 Third Busiest One

Thanks for sticking with me, but it’s finished now. You can properly head off.

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or if you can’t quite bear to tear yourself away from parkrun then you could always keep on going and 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.  

Bye then, hopefully see you at a parkrun near you again sometime soon.

🙂

Coming together at Comely Concord parkrun #555

You never regret a parkrun ever. FACT.

I’m so happy I made it out on this lovely sparkling morning, and was reunited with lovely sparkling parkrun people and the joy of winter sunshine. Hurrah! It was reyt good. And the thing is, it nearly didn’t happen, and if it hadn’t, that would have been properly sad. Still, all’s well eh?

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You’d think I’d know this by now, but it was a very close call for me as whether or not I’d be parkrunning today, to parkwalk or not to parkwalk, that was very much the question. Yesterday I had a complete tantrum-throwing pity party. It was a fairly ineffectual tantrum as I was on my own, and much like the tree that falls in the forest unseen, it’s quite hard to have a tantrum without an audience, but I did my best. I have been in excruciating pain of late, and it really compromises what I can do. Objectively, I’m more mobile than I was a year ago, and it was always going to be a tough week after adventuring so far afield last Saturday for lovely Trentham Gardens parkrun, I am learning I can do stuff up to a point but adventures have consequences. I had been recovering ok from my excursion to Stoke last week, but then I had a stumble over a kerb, both literally and figuratively, and it seems to have set me back quite a bit. I’m back to not being able to put weight through my foot, and that sets off my other symptoms and it’s all just completely crap. I try to be positive, but living with pain is not just disabling but exhausting. I dealt with this like a proper grown up by crying a lot, not bothering to get dressed or shower all day and ate most of a fresh loaf of bread and butter, which didn’t particularly help, and in fact probably made things worse, but comfort eating is my coping strategy, inadequate as it is, and be fair, there are worse things to self medicate with than fresh bread, it’s just I can’t get hold of them. Anyway, that Sainsbury’s walnut cob is pretty spectacular.

Then it was parkrun eve. Ice was all around. I’m nervous about ice at the best of times, and I wasn’t sure how my foot would hold up to driving, I do have an automatic, but even so. I clearly wouldn’t be going far afield. Lots of parkruns were being cancelled because of ice, and it was unclear what would happen locally. Hmmm. I did some parkrun related research. Oh look, Concord is having its event number 555. In case you aren’t aware dear reader, this is one of the 5k running challenges event numbers for something called the Nelson Index. I don’t even have the 5k running challenges app because I don’t have a smart phone, and labour under the delusion it’s not a challenge I’m particularly bothered about. But then again, a rare Nelson on my doorstep? Rude not to go. Oh, and the Nelson challenge is basically involves completing runs at events where the event number is a multiple of 111′ I don’t know how many you need to complete the challenge – there’s only ever been one 888 at Bushy parkrun so it would be harsh if you had to have all of them. It’s called the Nelson either because the ‘slang term “Nelson” applied to team or individual scores of 111 or multiples of. It has been ascribed to referring to Nelson’s 3 major naval victories (won, won, won) or more popularly to him being injured in battle from a musket ball shot in his right arm, resulting in surgical emergencies and him then apparently only having one eye, one leg and one arm. 111. The problem with that story is that there isn’t proof that he lost a leg, only that he lost an arm and his eyesight in one eye!’ Who knows, anyway, Nelson it is. And it seems that much as I don’t really care about such challenges, actually I clearly do, because the prospect of one on my doorstep was an irresistible lure. Worth not only getting up and dressed for, but maybe putting an actual bra on too. Oh giddy days! I mean, it would be ouchy, but probably doable if I just walked on the heel and side of my foot and used my stick. I have a wood pigeon that visits daily that only seems to be able to use one of its legs, and that gets on with stuff. It is also inelegant getting around, but hey, it’s still doing its pigeon thing admirably. I would channel my inner wood pigeon. Yeah, yeah they have a tendency to crash land into trees and fly into windows and things, but mostly they get up again. I’ll be that, but with less window crashing, hopefully.

But then there was ice! Ice, ice everywhere. Would it be dancing on ice, or would it be a cancellation casualty of the weather? Concord tends to keep radio silence. For whatever reason they don’t fill in the volunteer roster in advance, and the social media channels are generally quite, though splutter into life for big events like Christmas Day. This is a parkrun I’ve done a couple of Christmas Days (2018 and with a unicorn in 2017) and odd other occasions to meet up with friends. I’m not aware of it cancelling often at all, but it’s always a risk at this time of year. Having said that, looked like Hillsborough parkrun was very confident about going ahead, they had volunteer course gritters tooled up and ready to tackle the icier patches en route before the event. I decided I would venture to Concord and if it was cancelled I could always just go for a walk there on my own, people do take exercise on a Saturday morning even without a parkrun apparently, worth a try, or alternatively, if time allowed, head back to Hillsborough. Yep, that would be a plan. Always good to have a plan. A plan and a cup of tea is even better though. Speaking of which, I might just check out the status of my kettle, probably about time to check it’s still serviceable. A cup of tea solves everything after all. Apart from murder mystery dramas, but that’s a minor detail. A cup of tea definitely makes everything better, which is splendid.

Great cup of tea. Thanks for asking. Now, where was I?

Oh yes, up early, COLD and frosty morning. I peered out. Hmm, everything looked white, but it was sort of dry white. I noticed a car drive up my road and park up apparently without incident so decided I’d give it a whirl. I had real time communication with a fellow parkrunner who was heading darn sarf for the Running Show at Birmingham. He had to negotiate freezing fog which sounded horrific, but did make it to Babbs Mill parkrun so all’s well. Yeah, I should be grand just heading over to the other side of Sheffield.

First though, scrape the car, took a while. But success and on my way. The drive turned out to be fine. No traffic and not really any challenging conditions particularly either. It was blooming freezing, below freezing in fact, but dry cold so I didn’t encounter any ice. I still wasn’t sure if Concord would be able to go ahead, locally Millhouses and Rother Valley had both cancelled. Endcliffe was keen to go ahead and potentially welcome their 250,000 finisher, which is pretty cool to be fair.

As I approached the Concord Leisure Centre I was hugely cheered by the site of distant cow bobble hats, and glimpses of fluorescent Lycra flashing around. Ooh, this was looking most promising. If the event had cancelled I’d expect to see disappointed tourists driving away in search of another parkrun, this was looking more like game on. Better yet, as I pulled into the carpark, familiar faces. Yay, the Sheffield Olympic park junior parkrun volunteers were represented in force. It was just lovely to see friendly faces. I had no idea in advance if I would see anyone I knew, but hurrah, so many people from parkruns past had gravitated here. It seems a great many of us who ‘don’t really do the challenges’ had collectively done a ‘but oh look!’ and here we were! What’s more, for those of us who don’t really do challenges, it seems Hillsborough parkrun is on for event number 444 next week, well, basically rude not to.

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Hello lovely parkrun people!

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Parked up, delighted by familiar faces and ecstatic to see this parkrun was very much going ahead, I wended my way to the start area. Oh wow, it’s true my foot was very ouchy and legs very wobbly but oh I’d forgotten how lovely the setting for Concord parkrun can be. With bright winter sunshine piercing the frosty air it looked absolutely stunning. Christmas card perfect. There was a great buzz of people arriving, and I was quite giddy with seeing all these people I hadn’t seen for ages and ages and ages. One I hadn’t seen for at least a fortnight, and I was quite pleased I’d resisted the temptation of wearing her gifted new llama leggings (which are genuinely AMAZING) today. I’d thought about putting them on because they are lovely and soft and warm and colourful, but decided against as I am supposed to be saving them for a collective tourist jaunt in a few weeks time when we will have matchy matchy outfits. It would have been embarrassing to have been caught breaking ranks early, however great the temptation, but it was indeed splendid to have the unexpected joy of another reunion AND we’ll probably get to do it all again at Hillsborough parkrun next week! parkrun keeps on giving!

First stop the pop up sign, and choreographing photos. I do love a parkrun pop up sign, it’s sort of the parkrun equivalent of the water coolers so ubiquitous in Americans’ offices or the queue for the loo in a British one. It was where everybody hung out, and greetings were exchanged, new friends made and old friends became reacquainted with one another, hurrah! We all took turns photographing each other, and some photo bombing probably occurred, but that’s fun too! Mandatory photos taken and posed for by all. There were some 71 first timers at Concord today, and the number of finishers at 182 was more than double their usual average number of finishers which is 75.1. Nelson brought some, cancellation brought others and happenstance and a sunny day more still. Good to see people posing with a bit of energy and enthusiasm, it saddens me when people stand there rigid and solemn faced like they have to stay immobile for a Victorian pinhole camera or something. Couldn’t help noticing a fair few were posing the other side of the sign for the also obligatory, or at the very least irresistible for some, (s)Tart photos. #simplepleasures

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The park looked gorgeous, but the bright sunshine made it hard to really capture it. Still, I thought I’d show willing and snapped some shots of gathering parkrunners and lovely trees and winter sunshine. If you squint a bit and use your imagination, you’ll get the general ambience of it all ok I think.

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I don’t think there was a first timers’ welcome as such, but then I was wandering about trying – and failing – to take the perfect photo. However, after a little bit, the RD gathered us all together for a lovely welcome and briefing. Acknowledging the event number, giving a cheer of acknowledgement to Rose who had a balloon for her arbitrary 200th parkrun. We were reminded to stay safe, and advised there were some extra marshals out and about to keep an eye on things.

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Good news for me, two parkwalkers, and a cheery tailwalker too. The field of runners quickly disappeared over the horizon, with the pale blue parkwalkers following on behind. Me and the tail were quite significantly further back. I felt a bit bad really as I was definitely struggling and maybe shouldn’t have attempted the parkrun, but then again I was here now. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But I’m so glad I went. The tailwalker was very patient and we spent a great deal of time sharing running stories and trying to work out how we knew each other. Must have seen each other at a parkrun somewhere, most puzzling…

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The park looked lovely, the frost coating everything like sparkly fairy dust. There was a bright mist which gave everything a magical, mysterious hue. It also seemed exceptional calm, quiet and peaceful. I’m not sure if it really was quieter than normal, but there didn’t seem to be many people around.

As we walked around we met some lovely marshals, some of whom you pass more than once. One of whom had his very own corner apparently, but has resisted the impulse to have a special flag erected in the spot, or to have a plaque or at very least get the corner named after him. The issue is that were this to happen, he would feel unable to ever be absent again. Fair point, it’s still his corner, and referred to as such, the bench dedication or whatever can come later. All the marshals were in good spirits despite the cold. One was definitely dancing about, my tailwalking companion reckoned it was to keep warm, but maybe she just likes to dance like no-one is watching, parkrun can bring that out in people.

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The way the course is set up, you do get lapped as a slower participant, but there are also two sections where you get to see other runners coming charging towards you. This is less scary and more fun than you might imagine. If you get lucky you might even see someone you know, but even if you don’t it’s just nice to pass one another and get the sense of being part of a group event. Runners in the mist look even more athletic and lovely than they normally do. Silhouetted against the winter sun they were almost other worldly.

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I struggled a bit when we were being overtaken as we had to move to the side of the path and the camber wasn’t great for my foot, but I hobbled onwards. All participants were courteous and encouraging. It’s a two lap course, so we passed the finish funnel as some were coming in at the end of their parkruns.

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For the second lap we had the route to ourselves, me and the tailwalker. There were very few other people about, apart from aforementioned good natured marshals. The space was stunning. I have never really taken the time to appreciate this route, coming for Christmas Day doing the parkrun and disappearing off typically. It was quite a privilege to take time walking it.

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so we walked and talked and oohed and aahed. We were slightly discombobulated by a breathless runner in search of his wife. He’d finished his parkrun and returned on the course to meet her but met up with us as the tail of the event without having found her. I hope by now they are safely reunited. We hadn’t seen her, I don’t think we saw another soul.

Then we were at the finish!

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and it was as I had my token scanned, I recognised a fellow regular volunteer from Sheffield Olympic Legacy park junior parkrun, and then me and the tailwalker had a ‘duh’ moment and realised it was there we must have met before! Small parkrun world and all that.

And that was that, parkrun concluded. I’m so glad I went. Physically it took its toll, my foot does feel like it’s been crushed by a mallet and my body like it’s been hit by a truck, but mentally I feel lighter, which is especially novel after polishing off all those carbs yesterday. I didn’t stay for breakfast as needed to get home and rest up, but for the record there are good facilities in the leisure centre with loos and cafe and good companions too no doubt.

Another lovely parkrun, with a bonus challenge as well as happy accidents of parkrun paths crossing. A grand day out indeed.

If the mood takes you, 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.

Otherwise, same time next week? parkrun near you? Stay warm and safe til then if you can.

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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 will be enough to send positive ripples through the universe for generations and all will be well with the world. Good to know.

To be fair, though a bottle of the spirit of this parkrun day would be nice, some of us can go even better. For I left this parkrun not only with giddying, hilarious and positive memories, but an actual pocket hug to carry with me. I know! Amoozing! More of this later. Suffice to say this was truly a parkrun with ALL THE THINGS!

OK, but where to start. Erm, so much to say, so little structure in my head about how to get it out there. Oh well, let’s just dive in and see where we end up eh?

Through parkrun people get to know one another, that’s not really news, it’s a pleasing and almost inevitable consequence of communities coming together each week to run, walk, jog, volunteer, twalk (walk and talk) in their local spaces. That’s splendid, obvs. However, one unexpected consequence of lockdown was that the parkrun community for some moved online. Community cohesion not just survived, but flourished due to parkrun passionistas various connecting through things like the Quarantine Quiz (still happening if you want to virtually rock up) and of course the With Me Now (unofficial parkrun) podcast not only continuing its weekly broadcast but adding in Facebook lives, parkrunpedia, pictionary all sorts. There is a deep irony, that because no-one could go out anywhere, where you were located didn’t really matter, so new parkrun friendships sprung up from all over the place. All over the uk, and internationally too, particularly to Germany what with the quarantine quiz and all. Roll forward, parkrun returned (hurrah) and now we could all meet up again, there was renewed enthusiasm to meet up with friends old and new. Friends we hadn’t yet met even! parkrun tourism has always been a thing, but now it has taken on a more erm, collective focus. Individuals who are celebrating parkrun related achievements share their destinations and people rock up from near and far to join in the fun. It’s grand! It has always been possible to rock up at a new event and be welcomed by a parkrun team, but this sense of belonging is magnified when you can rock up at a new event and see a swarm of familiar faces up for a parkrun party. It’s pretty extraordinary. So it was, that when one of our number announced they’d be doing their Cowell run (100 unique parkrun destinations completed) on the 14th January at Trentham Gardens parkrun, with fancy dress, parkrun people and probably quality vegan cupcakes, it wasn’t the hardest decision of all time to want to get along there.

As usual, tediously, I was worried about the drive down as it was a long one. I’m working out that counter-intuitively perhaps, it works better for me if I have one full on long day rather than two consecutive demanding ones. If I go the night before then I’m shattered by the drive so parkrun can be a bit too far out of my comfort zone even walking it as I now do. On the other hand, going on the day means heading out in the dark, but if I can make it through the morning and then just faceplant on the sofa comatose for the next few days that can be more achievable. The other angst inducing consideration, was that there was an ominous clash of dates, with a Scunthorpe meet up mooted by northern parkrun buddies. I never have a social calendar so squished that I have commitments coincide so it was sod’s law on steroids that I was faced with this dilemma. Fortunately, the parkrun fairies worked their magic, happy chance brought a mini meet up at Sheffield Castle parkrun last week, and then actual fairies oversaw the Trentham Gardens parkrun gathering. Hurrah. All’s well that ends well indeed!

Honestly, I didn’t particularly research Trentham Gardens parkrun in advance, just focused on where it was and how to get there. I didn’t even properly register it was a one lap course, though I do like those. I just clocked a load of people I knew would be gathering for a special parkrunner’s graduation from being ‘just’ a cow to being a full on Cowell and that was good enough for me. Sheep like, I’d endeavour to be there. However, you dear reader are very much wiser, and perhaps will appreciate some of the usual website blah de blah, so let’s start with that:

According to the Trentham Gardens parkrun website:

The event takes place at Trentham Gardens, Trentham Estate, Stone Road, Trentham, Stoke-On-Trent, ST4 8JG.

and the course is described thus:

Course Description – A one lap route that circumnavigates Trentham Lake and takes you through the famous Italian Gardens on the Trentham Estate. The course is accessed via a footbridge close to Trentham Garden Centre. Please do not use the main entrance for Trentham Gardens (in the centre of the shopping village).

The start/finish of the 5k route is inside the Trentham Gardens estate but all participants must exit the Gardens at the end of parkrun. Access is granted by the Trentham Estate for the purpose of the event.

Facilities – The shopping village and garden centre offers a vast array of eateries and shops. The main entrance to Trentham Gardens is located in the centre of the village – charges apply for entry to the Gardens.

For those parkrunners travelling a distance, there is a Premier Inn on the site.

Location of start – The event starts in Trentham Gardens.

Free parking is available on the Trentham Estate car park. We would request that you park on the main car park (to the left of the main entrance) and not the car park next to Trentham Garden Centre if possible. It is about a 5 minute walk from the main car park to the start.

Post Run Coffee – Every week we grab a post parkrun coffee at The Rotisserie in Trentham Shopping Village – please come and join us!

and the course looks like this:

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Good to know. Also good to know, the parkrunner at the epicentre of this gathering was on track for this to be her 100th unique parkrun destination. The first parkrunner to achieve this feat was Cowell, so following in his footsteps has become known as achieving a Cowell, and so she’d be wearing Cow fancy dress for the first half of the name, and two L plates for the ells at the end. Clever she be! What I didn’t know at this stage, was there would also be a fine fellow parkrunning participant achieving her fiftieth unique parkrun so her half Cowell and therefore her cow, so moorvelously there would be extra bonus bovines in attendance. Various of their acolytes would also