There is traditionally a parkrun Christmas Compendium, showing which events are holding a run on Christmas and New Years Day. I learned that one of NI’s newest, Stormont, was planning to hold it’s NYD run at 11 am, to allow runners to complete a double, and also run an earlier one, both of which would count as “official” parkruns. An idea formed in my little brain!
Now, you probably know that I’m partial to a bit of dressing up. You also know that I participate in Scottish Country Dancing. For a dance dem, I had to have some festive headgear, and so I found a cute elf headband in poundland. To go with this, I acquired an elfy T shirt in New Look, and started trying to source stripey tights. The usual suspects on the high street proved useless, but I did find some black and white ones in Claires Accessories, where I also picked up a sprout necklace. While taking a short-cut (ha!) through TK Maxx, I happened upon the cutest “Christmas jumper for your dog”, so that was Minnie’s outfit sorted!
Cracker the squirrel is usually holding a nut, but it was fairly simple to get him holding a sprout.
I wondered if maybe a caption would be funny, something along the “elf and safety” line, and came up with “parkrun is good for your elf”. I made up a sign to pin on my back, and we were good to go!
So…..6 parkruns in a fortnight? Let’s see how it went.
- 19 December, Queens Belfast
I was so torn on this, the last official Saturday parkrun before Christmas Day. Sports Personality of The Year was coming from Belfast that weekend, and so there would be TV crews, Dame Mary Peters, many many mince-pies at Waterworks, NI’s oldest. There was a Hawaiian themed run at Carrickfergus, which was tempting, and some other local runs were encouraging fancy dress. Or should I go to Falls, the next on my list of “times I think I can beat”?
But it was also a “dashing through the snow” type day for me and my time was a scarce resource: I had to go and visit the in-laws, and then be in Bangor for a Scottish dance dem at 2.30. So I opted for the closest fancy-dress one at Queens, since a TV crew always means things over-run, and anyway the parking at Waterworks is terrible. Conditions were good, a bit windy but dry. Lots of super fancy dress costumes were in evidence, and Minnie’s jumper was much admired. There weren’t too many photographers about, but a lovely lady called Breege (with her gorjus doggie in its tinsel collar) took an action shot of us, and came up to me afterwards to get my email address.
Time: 25:54, annoyingly a bit off my 25:32 best time here, but still nice to sub-26, while able to chat to the “undertakers” guys in their black 100 shirts (not jealous at all, no, no) who recognized Minnie from Waggy Races.
2. 25 December, City Park
Running on Christmas Day, was I quite mad? Well, possibly. There were a number of options available – Belfast Victoria was enticing with its 10 o’clock start time! But I wanted to do something as a family, and bring my paparazzi husband and other dog with me. Max is a hyper-sensitive Weimaraner, and while he has no problem with running per se, he has huge anxiety problems with crowds, noise, other people, other dogs, applause, high-fizzy vests….So we knew this would be an issue, but at least at City Park there’s plenty of escape spaces to retreat to.
Since the elf headband had been a bit tricky to keep on my head while running, I turned my sprout necklace into a sort of crown, which allowed me to make plenty of “I’ve put the sprouts on!” jokes.
The weather was murky and misty, and with the outside temperature at 2 degrees, there were even some icy patches on the course. But it is a lovely run, it was over a year since I’d been here, and I’d forgotten how beautifully flat this single lap of the lake is.
For a large part of the run I was tailing a guy wearing a T shirt that said #alltheparkruns. I couldn’t get close enough to read it, or to see which parkuns it meant. I overtook him on the final stretch , and afterwards shook his hand. When we were inside doing the scanning, I showed him my #iverunallthenornirnparkrunssoihave shirt, and Pete told me about his charitable fundraising plans to do over 300 different parkruns in the next 10 years. Now that’s forward planning! He was going to Armagh the next day, to run with his nephew, who’d be doing his first parkrun.
Pete is also videoing the runs he completes, and here’s a great speeded up canter around City Park (watch out for I am Sprouticus!)
Citypark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uipwEapdMLA
Time: 25:37 yay, a PB! Despite the black and white tights falling down….
3. 26 December, Ormeau
Boxing Day dawned, without TOO bad a hangover. We’d put our names down to join the Santa Dash taking place at Belfast’s Ormeau Park – I think I was last here for the half-marathon in September! I toyed with the idea of putting Minnie in her snow-trimmed red and white 50 cloak, but in the end, went for the jumper – which got mentioned in the pre-run brief! The sprouty headgear was also a talking point, the running went well, despite flooded parts ( I just ran through them on elfin tiptoe). The crowd was very friendly and chatty, and the borrowed gazebo was useful for the focal point of post-run-tea-and-buns. I swapped the too-small black-and-white tights for a pair in red.
I have to say a huge thank you to Mark Ramsey, who took a staggering 1,000+ photos of the day itself, and it’s wonderful to have access to action shots like these.
Time: 26:06, a PB, though only 3rd in my age-category!
4. 1 January Comber
Christmas out of the way, it was time for New Year celebrations, and lots of champagne!
There was a yellow warning of snow and ice, and I took it easy on the winding cross-country road to Comber, which is a flat course consisting of 4 figure-of-eight loops. I’d gone for a Hogmanay theme, and was wearing a tartan sash, and carrying a giant champagne bottle and a plastic glass.
I have 2 sashes: one is in a “weathered Ulster” pattern, which is quite a dark brown. I didn’t feel it would show up very well in pictures. So instead I took the “Titanic” tartan one off my dancing dem white dress. My husband wore a kilt in this tartan for our wedding at Gretna Green, and it was designed by local historian Clifford Smyth. I attached a tartan bow to Minnie’s collar. It was a very cold morning – I was glad I’d put on a long sleeved layer under my Jog Lisburn top, and some leggings under my skort. The paths were pretty icy at points – if I’d been RD I might have considered cancelling.
But it was runnable with care. I did start off with the champagne bottle and glass, but cast them aside after the first lap. Given the slippery surfaces, the added obstacle of carrying props, and the fact that I’d stayed up till after midnight to see in the New Year, I shouldn’t have been surprised that I didn’t quite manage a PB, though a time of just over 27 was satisfying enough. A quick glass of water and a chocolate in the hospitality centre, and it was time to head to number 2. Lots of people were doing the same, in fact I think there was a mini-bus which went from Comber-Stormont. I was glad I’d picked Comber, as the other early alternative at Waterworks WAS cancelled due to ice – a very tough decision for the RD to make.
5. 1 January Stormont
As we arrived by the familiar gates and long drive, the heavens opened and it absolutely poured. I parked by the hotel across the road, and stayed in the car as long as I could, but I knew I wanted to take some photos with the other Jog Lisburn crew, so we made our way to the briefing point. I was greeting lots of friends form parkruns near and far – Ronan, who I’d met in Derry, and Des, a fellow member of the “IverunallthenornirnparkrunssoIhave” club (and co-incidentally, another member of the dog-called-Minnie club). One of my blog readers told me excitedly that he only has 2 more events to attend before he’s done all the NI parkruns, and we waved to waggy pals Alfie and Dudley.
We managed a quick Jog Lisburn group photo, though the champers bottle is a bit obscured. I later learned that some of the other JL ladies did indeed come to Stormont, but on seeing the rain they didn’t get out of their car! The turnout was huge, rain or no rain, and it was quite a sight to see the start line half way up the famous Prince of Wales Avenue. I struggled a bit to get my Garmin reset in time, and Minnie was being a bit noisy, but once we were underway the run itself was fun, though VERY muddy! I was tired and hungry, and even Minnie wasn’t attacking the hills with her usual gusto. I felt my pace just draining away, and we crossed the line in just under 30 minutes.
There were queues for the finish tokens to be given out, where it’s important to stay in order. Once those were safely acquired though, there were shorter queues for the scanners, though with only 2 being used this was causing a backlog. When the official results came out, it appeared that an even 500 runners had been processed. I suspect there were actually more than this, but that the stopwatch and finish tokens had proved limiting factors. Anyway, it was a record breaking attendance for a NI parkrun, and the atmosphere was very cheery and upbeat.
6. 2 January Volunteer
My intention had been to finish the fortnight with a trip to Falls, hopefully to get a new PB. But a Facebook appeal for volunteers could not go unheeded, and I decided to do my duty and go along to Wallace, for their first run of the year.
New Years resolutions were clearly taking effect as there were over 20 newly registered runners that week, and on scanning duty I had to deal with more than a few people who hadn’t yet registered, or who hadn’t printed out their barcode. As well as another clump of runners whose barcodes were too soggy and wouldn’t scan. I’d knitted some cosies to keep the scanners warm, as they don’t like cold or rainy conditions.
Well, overall the Christmas and New Year runs were a lot of fun, but now I have to go and wash and iron my tartan sash, and re-attach it to my dancing dress!
Filed under: belfast, Parkrun, running | Tagged: Citypark parkrun, comber parkrun, ni parkruns, ormeau parkrun, parkrun, Queens parkrun, stormont parkrun | 6 Comments »
A few other people recognised Tim, and we were also joined by parkrun Jim.
It’s a gradual climb up to the lake, which you run round twice,
We arrived in good time, as usual, to be met by the Cummings family who presented her with a special chewy bone. Thank you!
Be more dog.
However, it took me to the front entrance, by the big house, and I knew that the parkrun started at the back. So I had to do a little bit of driving around in circles, another compulsory manoeuvre for today’s traveller. But I got there in good time, parked up, had a bit of a wander around to get my bearings, and joined in the warm-up session.
There’s plenty of parking – there needs to be as this has regularly over 500 runners.
So a good funnelling system is in place.
Well done, young man!
I did find a friendly black dog to chase, which reminded me of how helpful running can be in dealing with dark thoughts.
While I was there I managed to lose the just acquired driving licence, which I’d picked up from the collect-at-Argos service that very morning! But the staff were delightful, and having given them my mobile number they called me later that day to say they’d found it down the sliding doors of their display cabinet. Big thankings to them!
Dancing At Lunacy 
