Bit of a parkrun catchup post as I’ve not had much time for blogging recently!
A few weeks ago I went to Rising Sun for the first time in about five years. It used to be my go-to alternative parkrun when Town Moor wasn’t on, but then Leazes and Jesmond Dene started up in 2019 and I’d sort of forgotten about Rising Sun in the intervening time. It was really nice to try it again (I think I’ve now run it three times on three slightly different courses).
The week after that, I was parkwalking for the first time at Town Moor, as I had a race the following day. I understand the parkwalking role is different from the tailwalking role, but I found that there weren’t really any other walkers to encourage – there was (I think) one very fast walker and a few slow runners, but they were all quite a lot faster than my brisk walking pace and so I ended up hanging back with the tailwalkers and other parkwalker after all (all fellow Benchies so it was nice). We finished in just over 50 minutes so quite a fast field.
A week later, it was NHS celebration day, so I headed down to Jesmond Dene in one of my many blue race t-shirts. It was a lovely day for a run so I took it easy en route and enjoyed the cake afterwards!
Then last week, Geth and I were visiting the in-laws so I was back at Pendle parkrun. Incredibly, after trying and failing to break 35 minutes at Pendle for years, I somehow ran 32:46 without really pushing it! No idea where that came from! Really pleased though.
Finally, this last weekend, I was volunteering at Jesmond Dene – finish tokens in the torrential rain for an hour. What a difference a fortnight makes weather-wise… No photo as it was far too wet for a selfie.
I’m really enjoying a variety of parkruns at the moment and expect that to continue for the rest of the summer and beyond!