42 parkruns at 27 new locations during 2023 – a great year.
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parkrun 2023
Category: parkrun
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parkrun East of England regionnaire
So, parkrun returned after the 16-month Covid “pause” on 24 July 2021, and it saw Lucy and me travel to Soham Village College for their 18th event. It was both reassuringly familiar and very strange, being around people again, not sure how close was socially acceptable. The Run Director did his briefing fairly quickly, and […]
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Looking brighter
My last post, entitled “What’s next?” (which I struggle to write without hearing Martin Sheen in my head) was as long ago as August. It’s hard to decide whether a lot has happened since then, or not very much. Whatever one’s perspective on that, things are looking much brighter on quite a number of fronts. […]
The volunteer team was small but very efficient and friendly, setting up the course, conducting the new runners’ briefing, and even finding time to help with the all-important selfie. Some of the equipment for the course seemed non-standard: apparently the official kit hadn’t arrived so some Kennel Club Rally equipment had been repurposed. Fortunately for […]
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Distances build
Week five saw another 11km slow run before work on Tuesday which at the moment still requires a fair bit of running in the dark. Wednesday was what I suppose you could call fartlek, being 3km of my normal slow pace (6:59/km), then 3km jog with Lucy and Brindley, and then 3km at marathon pace. […]
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A quarter of the way there
So, I’m four weeks into the 16 week marathon training plan. The long Sunday runs still aren’t all that long, but the weekly mileage is consistently above what it typically is, and my legs are hopefully getting more used to running when tired without too much objection. Week two: three midweek runs from home, a […]
The first week of 16 in the marathon training plan is complete. As I said in my previous post, this was an odd week, with the original plan mauled about a good deal. Let’s see how the remaining 15 weeks stand up to encounters with real life: this week’s deviations were planned from the start, […]
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Sheringham and Felixstowe
A weekend of parkrun, a coastal walk, and a run along the river from Felixstowe
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South Woodham Ferrers (66)
So having completed Cambridgeshire again last week, today it was time to return to Essex, and to South Woodham Ferrers parkrun on the River Crouch. I parked the car as instructed in the car park of Marsh Farm Animal Adventure Park, but there were surprisingly few other people about, and as I jogged down the […]
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parkrun catch-up (numbers 98 to 104)
It’s been a little while since I posted here, during which time I’ve had a few more great Saturday morning parkrun experiences, so here’s a brief recap: Harlow parkrun – location 60 for parkrun #98 Harlow parkrun (my 60th different parkrun location) was an opportunity to meet with my friend Catherine and her daughter Alex. […]
This morning’s visit was to Tring parkrun, the most westerly parkrun in the East of England region. It was hot and it was hilly, but beautiful too. The route is fairly steeply downhill, then a gentle incline up the grassy valley, then a steep wooded zigzag up onto the ridge, along the woodland ridge, then […]
Today a visit to Norfolk, starting with parkrun at Blickling Hall, a large National Trust estate. After I’d had a little warm-up run, I stood guard over a frog as it gradually made its way from the danger area where runners were assembling towards the long grass where it would be safe. Once it was […]
Blackpool (53) With all the parkruns in Cumbria having been visited, a Lake District holiday saw me heading south down the M6 early on Saturday to visit Blackpool parkrun. It was probably an unwise thing to do as I wasn’t feeling great and it was a cold morning, but I resolved to run it slowly. […]
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Lucy’s first parkrun
After 10 years of well-meant teasing about how odd runners are, Lucy decided she was going to give it a decent stab, perhaps inspired in part by the London Marathon. She embarked with determination on the NHS Couch to 5k programme on 9 April, and with suitable tweaks continued to progress with three runs every […]
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Claire’s 50th parkrun
Today was Claire’s 50th parkrun, and someone who bear’s his share of the responsibility for Claire doing parkruns (and 10k’s and 10-milers) at all, I thought I would pop down to Hadleigh to help celebrate. It was a glorious morning albeit rather chilly, with lovely views across the Thames estuary. Claire was tailwalking with her […]