Dancing At Lunacy

Run #207, event # 48, alphabeteer letter G

Being an alphabeteer is sometimes frustrating.  We are all still waiting for someone to start a parkrun beginning with X, and the currently available Zs are a loooooong way away.  But even within the UK and Irish set there are some letters that really ought to be more easy to capture than they are.  One of those is letter G.  I was disappointed on a recent visit to Glasgow to find no letter Gs there, but I always enjoy ticking off another Dublin parkrun, and so I planned to combine my visit to the annual Dublin Scottish Dance Club dance with a trip to Griffeen Park.  And was keen to show off my new bobble cow hat!

Access:

Griffeen is in a somewhat residential area west of the M50, near Lucan.  In fact my sat nav took me first to a cul de sac of houses at the back of the park.

But a quick consult of the course map on the parkrun page led me round the corner, where there is a small car park.  There’s a GAA field in the park as well, so the car park can fill up quite quickly.

I was there typically early (I always allow for sat-nav disagreements) but when I was leaving there were quite  a few vehicles parked on the nearby verges.  There are no loos in the park.

Crowd:

I apporached a small group of people who looked like runners, who assured me that I was in the right place, and chatted to me in a very welcoming and friendly fashion.

Paul was most interested in my alphabet challenge, and Pat the first timers briefer made sure I got a shout out in the tourist welcome.  The average number of runners is 150,  it was a glorious sunny day when I was there, and there were 183 there, including some newbies.

Course:

2 laps, fairly flat, across 2 bridges and past some lovely shrubs and trees.

The start and finish are beside each other, and there’s a box for leaving keys in.  All the junctions are well signposted and/or marshalled.

Gear:

I deliberately had no watch or ear phones with me, in fact the only thing on my wrists was my barcode.  I’d been low-carbing all week, and so had been trying to get more in tune with my body.  So I wanted to be aware of how it was coping, and tell it to get a move on into the fat-burning mode! Part of low carbing involves drinking copious amounts of water, which I had been doing.  Except for Friday when I dialled it back a bit in view of the 3 hour car journey I had to take.  So my mouth on Saturday morning was extremely dry.

Anyway, having no headphones allows for a bit of banter with the marshalls and fellow runners.

Time:

I’m still struggling to get anywhere near 30 mins, but I really enjoyed my 33 minute canter around, and finished with my usual skip-change-step over the finish line.

Post-run:

I’d planned to join the crew at the local Starubucks, but my sat nav couldn’t find it.  Instead I ended up in Lucan, where there was a service station and Macdonalds complex, including a healthy food place called Chopped, where I tucked into a lovely omelette with ham, tomato and feta.

And the rest:

It was quite the weekend of dancing!  I’d thoroughly enjoyed Hofesh Schecter’s “Show” at the Mac on Thursday evening, full of macabre energy and pulsating rhythym. I treated myself to some glimpses of new workds on Saturday afternoon as part of Dublin Dance festival, and danced the night away with our Dublin friends on Saturday night, donning my fascinator in order to be properly attired for the day-appropriate “Haste to the Royal Wedding”.

All my parkruns:

NI (and other) parkruns: summary list

Filed under: Dublin, Parkrun, running | Tagged: alphabteer, Griffeen |