Last Saturday was the second parkrunday of the Toronto trip!
In contrast to the previous week, it was beautifully sunny… but it was still very cold at that time in the morning so we jogged round in all our layers again 🥶 The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that Budapest Park is an 8am start from May to September! The RD explained that part of the reason for this is to avoid the heat of the day, but that was certainly not applicable on this occasion. We even experienced flakes of snow as we were walking back to the streetcar! As it happened though, we were meeting family later that morning, so the earlier start worked out well for us.
This is a really pretty parkrun and also very flat. If I’m there again on a day with better temperature (and not running a race the next day!) I will consider giving it a good blast. This time, though, I just took it easy and enjoyed it.
I’m back home again now so I’ll be a lot more local this weekend.
Yes, I’m checking on the King Street West phone box again 😀
With the new baby niece in existence we will be visiting Toronto as much as we can. Always nice to see this phone box though!
Last time I did a parkrun while visiting Toronto, in 2018, the nearest event was Whitby, which is a good hour or two away on the train. In 2019, the first parkrun started up in Toronto proper – Downsview parkrun – and I made plans to visit in 2020.
2020 was 2020, and for various reasons I’ve not been able to get back out to Canada until now. It’s been a long seven-year wait to visit Downsview! But we finally made it this last Saturday, and despite some awful weather, it was worth the wait.
It was a really cold, windy, rainy morning and the Downsview course is very exposed. It’s also about a mile to walk from the station to the start, so Geth and I were pretty frozen by the time we got there. As such, we made the decision to take it easy and run in all our layers. Despite this, it took me until the final lap (of three) to thaw out and feel like I could move my legs properly! I was quite surprised to finish in 28:16 as the cold made me feel so slow.
It was so much fun though because the team were so friendly and so were the other runners. As is often the case outside the UK, it was a small field (only 35 runners – there may well be a lot more on nicer days!) and everyone was having a laugh together.
I like to tick off different parkruns (and will be doing so again next week) but I may be tempted to revisit this one on a nicer day during a future visit.
Just sneaking in with last week’s parkrunday post before the next parkrunday arrives! It’s been a bit of a week 😴😵💫
It was another attempt at the Town Moor two-lapper – seventh in a row I believe. I was keen to knock more time off the season’s best and I did by about another 45 seconds (chased somebody round whom I know does about 25 usually in order to give myself a good chance of getting back under 26; came in at 25:26 in the end). I would love to get back down to my PB zone of 23:2x by late summer, so hopefully I’ll keep chipping away as I go through my various half marathon training blocks for 2026.
Taper and tourism for a couple of weeks now, and then I’ll get back to it.
Flew into Toronto yesterday so the focus right now is on trying to stay awake. I hope to visit the Toronto phone box again once my brain is back in gear, but that will have to wait till next week!
Bit of a ramble today to update about what will be coming for future phone box posts!
I’m up to date with the phone box logging as it stands, but have quite a few boxes in my notes that for various reasons I wasn’t able to photograph. I have plans to ‘collect’ some of them later this year but for now I have logged everything (bar one or two photos for which I need to do a bit more research).
The long-promised phone box map – if you’ve been following for the last few months you’ll know that all phone box posts are now complete with coordinates, so they’re ready to go once I start working on this project! The question is when I’ll have time to do so, but I might be able to get a better sense of that during an upcoming writing retreat.
After a multi-year break I am back marathoning Doctor Who again, so there will be an eventual return to my sub-series of ‘The Wrong Phone Box’ posts. I also have one or two videogame phone box features in the planning.
I also still need to do this book review I promised over four years ago 😬 plus at least one post about other phone box paraphernalia I have in the house!
Lots in the pipeline, but it will be a bit quiet for the next few weeks. Hoping to keep sharing progress though!
Another week, another trip to Town Moor. According to my logs, I’ve not done the same event so many times in a row since early 2018! It was another tough run in the wind so my result was seven seconds slower than last week, but still consistent. Hoping for SB weather again next week.
One more run on the Moor planned next week and then we’re a bit further afield again.
Following my discovery of the black K-series homage phone box in Middlesbrough, sparking a memory of the one in Bradford, I realised I was also running past one with my running club every Sunday!
(Coordinates 54°97’21.4″N, 1°61’71.1″W.)
Still not got round to researching these, but I will!
