parkrun tourism: Southwark

Posted on October 16, 2016 by lindaharley

In town to see Fagin’s Twist,

img_0831and I chose my accommodation based on proximity to a parkrun I had yet to do. So I ended up in a very well located Air BnB in Bermondsey right beside beautiful Southwark Park.

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I took time on the Friday to walk around the park, and I was struck by how beautiful it was.

img_0710Wide tree-lined avenues,

an old English garden,

a duckpond,

bandstand, and plenty of cheeky grey squirrels.

Access:

There are a number of gates/ entrances to the park,

img_0799and car-parking didn’t seem to be an issue.  Most people walked, so I’m guessing they live locally.  Bermondsey tube on the Jubilee line is a 10 minute stroll away, and there are a couple of bus stops near by too.  Sadly, the toilets are in the cafe,

img_0815which doesn’t open till 9, but Surrey Quays shopping centre is the closest alternative.

Course:

It’s a 3 lap course, on wide flat tarmac paths, with just a couple of sharp bends to hamper your speed.  There’s one short section where runners are going in both directions, but it’s very well marshalled at all the junctions.

There are no hills to speak of, so it’s theoretically a fast one.

Crowd:

There were over 200 runners when I visited, most of them quite young.

img_0806 I did spot my first cow cowl “in the wild”, as well as an apricot shirt from Stormont.

Gear:

The “round the tree” approach was taken to coats and belongings, but I didn’t want to leave my key there in case it got lost.

img_0810So I tucked the keys into my grey wrist band, and looped Cracker onto my watch strap.

Strangely Appropriate Song on Shuffle:

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It was a glorious bright autumn morning, with the sun glinting off the pyramid roof of Canary Wharf on the skyline, and I was singing along to Nicky Byrne’s “Sunlight”.

Time:

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I didn’t quite manage to sub 30 minutes, but I was first in my new age-category!

All my parkruns

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NI parkruns: Omagh

Posted on October 9, 2016 by lindaharley

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I took the opportunity on a glorious October day to attend the inaugural parkrun at Omagh.

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It’s about 60 miles away from me, just over an hour on pretty good roads, and on a morning full of sunshine the views of the hills and trees in their autumn colours it made for a very pleasant journey. Even Minnie wasn’t her usual Squeaky McSqueakface, and settled down in the boot to snooze happily.

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Access:

The postcode was helpfully given on the website, and my sat nav took me to the Omagh Leisure Complex with relative ease.  There’s plenty of free car parking, and the leisure centre itself has toilets and a cafe.

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Crowd:

There’s a bit of debate about attending inaugurals – it can be daunting for the volunteers on their first day on the job, and give a misleading idea of what to expect on a normal parkrun day.  There were around 270 runners on this occasion, and many of them were first timers, or were walking.  This meant that the runners were well spaced out along the course, so there wasn’t too much hemming in. And I did meet a lesser-spotted 250 shirt wearer!

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Gear:

I’d run into diffs recently with low batteries, so I’d made sure my headphones and watch were both fully charged.  And I had new running sunglasses from Lidl.

14589639_10210650357278783_3103095712384949833_oI love my Ron Hill arm pocket for my phone – I’d lost the last one I bought, but they were reduced to £4 this week in Pure Running, so I bought a replacement.  I fully expect the original to turn up tomorrow….

Cracker my lucky mascot was with me – though the organisers could do with a bucket or box to put keys/ jackets in. And in full-on tourist mode, I was wearing my cow cowl (for those who’ve run 20 or more different events), my apricot tribesports vest, Minnie in matching apricot bow, and my own hand made I’ve-sewn-all-these-buttons-on-myself T shirt, with a new button to be added#I’verunallthenornirnparkrunssoIhave.

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Course:

There’s a lap of the running track on soft fine gravel to start, and then along tarmac paths around some very pretty duck ponds and a weir, looping back along the same route. Repeat, and finish with a final lap of the track.

There’s one short sharp hill, and a couple of pinch points where runners are going in both directions, but it’s a pretty fast course.  My Garmin said it was 5.17 km, though!

Time:

I haven’t been running at my best recently, but Minnie was in great form, and we had plenty of space to allow her to tow me along.

14524569_10210650376359260_8759420672099797123_o Indeed, we hit the 2km mark at 9.55, which is my target sub 25 minute pace. But I reminded myself that it doesn’t pay to knock yourself out on the first visit to any parkrun – make it feasible for yourself to go back later and get a PB!

img_0678So we eased off a bit, and I even stopped to take a few photos around the route. I was pretty happy with my 27.27 time, and on the last time that I’m running in this age category it was pleasing to be first in that group.  17th lady, 77th overall.

Strangely Appropriate Tune on Shuffle:

Watching everyone gather at the start line for the first briefing, I was listening to the UK Eurovision song “You’re not alone, we’re in this together” by Joe and Jake.

img_0662  I think it’s one of the best UK entries in a long while, and it was sadly under-marked by the voting juries.

By the time I was completing the final lap of the track, and struggling to keep going, we had moved to “One Last Breath” from Greece’s Maria-Elena in 2015.

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List of all the parkruns I’ve completed.

Filed under: Parkrun, running | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Parkruns: Tim, Jim and Colin

Posted on August 13, 2016 by lindaharley

I’ve met Tim Page a couple of times before – he’s working his way round all the Norn Irn parkruns raising awareness and funds for leukemia and lymphoma.  He was due to run at Colin Glen this week, and was feeling a bit nervous of its reputation as a tough one.  I’d managed to be first lady the  last time  I was here, and it holds a special place in my heart as it completed the NI set for me last year.  But Minnie had managed to hurt her paw, so there was no barkrun for her, and no way I could better my previous time without her assistance on the hills.  So I volunteered to keep Tim company on his run.

I arrived in good time and parked up, just before Tim himself appeared, and in between his stretches I got him to pose for the traditional “Cracker Says” moment.

IMG_0307A few other people recognised Tim, and we were also joined by parkrun Jim.

He famously came home from holiday in Spain in order to continue his parkruns, and was the first man in Ireland to complete 250. He’s recently added a second tattoo on his other calf to celebrate this achievement.

There was a good turnout, as a recent Steps to Health group were making their graduation run, and the spread of post run goodies looked very tasty indeed.

It’s a beautiful course,

winding its way through sun dappled trees,

across bridges,

and past some Gruffalo statues.

IMG_0311 It’s a gradual climb up to the lake, which you run round twice,

before a great downhill stretch all the way home.

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Tim had been worried about various niggles, including an achilles problem, so we agreed we would roughly run for 4 minutes, walk for 1. I acted as photographer and now and then I’d sprint ahead or stay behind to get a good picture.  Even if it was just of Jim’s tatts!

We smiled and laughed our way around the course, sharing stories about previous runs, jobs, and writing.

There was great cheering as we crossed the finish line, and I know Tim was relieved to have that one ticked off.

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Thank you to the super volunteers for their sterling work today, and well done all the first timers!

 

 

 

 

 

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Don’t Forget Your Barko! #dfyb

Posted on June 26, 2016 by lindaharley

The hashtag #dfyb is used by parkrunners around the world.  It is shorthand for “Don’t Forget Your Barcode”, the little scrap of paper which is scanned after you run, which the magical parkrun computer elves then match up with your time, and create a myriad of statistics. Serious parkrunners have extra barcodes stashed in their car or handbag, or have them laminated.  I forked out for a keyring barcode, but found it got worn away next to my keys, and nowadays have a black plastic wristband, which always scans, is waterproof, and is unobtrusive to wear.

I did jokingly sport a fake barcode tattoo when doing my own 100th parkrun!

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Now to Minnie, my faithful running mate.  She’s accompanied me to parkruns in Wallace, Citypark, Armagh, Antrim, Ecos, Larne, Comber, Valley, Colin Glen, Falls, Ormeau, Victoria, Waterworks, Queens, and Bangor….where she memorably jumped in the water, obviously thinking it was a triathlon.

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She can be a little bit barky and apprehensive of people, and particularly dislikes being reached down to for a pat. If you do ever meet us, the best plan is to ignore her – she’ll come for a sniff and say hello when she’s satisfied that you’re OK.

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Where shall we go?

I knew we were approaching her 100th parkrun…sorry…barkrun…and thought that this momentous milestone should not go uncelebrated.

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I’d encountered Murphy’s Barkery a few times at Waggy Races, and they had always been so lovely and friendly, as well as making some delicious doggy treats.  They were delighted to make a special giant cookie, complete with the parkrun symbol.

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Min isn’t too bad at dressing up: she has a Christmas jumper, a skeleton costume (which glows in the dark), an Adidog running vest and of course a Dog Lisburn vest. Simple outfits are best – the red bandana she wore as Muttley was easy peasy, but trying to get a 3rd eye on her head to be a 3 eyed raven was a disaster.

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So of course I had to make her a milestone 100 Tshirt! I bought a small plain black Tee from M&S (size 8 gives her plenty of room for manoeuvre), and a fabric paint pen from Craftworld. If I’d had more time and patience, I’d have stenciled it, but as it was, hand written had to do – it wasn’t going to get a lot of up-close scrutiny, and it was only for lolz, after all.

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minnies 100th 005We arrived in good time, as usual, to be met by the Cummings family who presented her with a special chewy bone. Thank you!

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The T shirt attracted attention from other runners making their way to the briefing point, where we met up with the lovely Andrea and her running pooch, who gave us a bag of dog treats. Thank you too!

We got a special mention in the Run Director’s brief, very ably delivered by Brenda Harris.

The weather was OK – not too warm, and a hint of drizzle, but no actual rain, and no wind.  But my running form hasn’t been good lately – I have a niggly IT band, am carrying too much weight, and not doing enough training.  On top of that, my Garmin’s battery died after the first km! So as there wasn’t realistically a chance of grabbing a new PB, we just relaxed and enjoyed our run.  The marshalls and other volunteers were brilliant as usual, and gave us lots of support! And we did call out “Dare to Dream!” at a dog walker whose pooch was wearing a GAWA vest.

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Photocall afterwards, and Brenda asked if I could pose looking as if I was shaking her paw saying Well Done.  Luckily, Minnie’s repertoire of  commands includes Sit! and Paw! so we were happy to oblige.

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What can I say.  It’s an absolute delight to have her running with me, she gets me up Heartbreak Hill, and more importantly keeps the momentum going once we get to the top. She’s always game to run, and indulges my dress-up proclivities.  She helps me prove that – you don’t have to be mad to be a runner, but it helps!

minnies 100th 011Be more dog.

 

Filed under: Dogs, Lisburn, Parkrun, running | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Harley Goes To Marley

Posted on May 30, 2016 by lindaharley

Having done all the (at time of writing)22 Norn Irn parkruns, I need to venture further afield these days to try new ones.  I do take advantage of any travelling plans I have, and it’s usually possible to tag on a parkrun during a weekend away.  And, since this is a blog with “dancing” in the title, it’ll come as no surprise that this time it was a dancing weekend.  Not just any old dancing weekend either, it was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Dublin Scottish Dance Club.

Accommodation in Dublin proved difficult to find – not only was there a big football match on, but somebody called The Boss was playing at Croke Park.  I decided to try out an Air BnB, and found one close to the main dance event in Taney Parish Centre.  There are around 10 parkruns in the greater Dublin area, and with one called Marlay (sometimes spelled Marley) close to my lodgings, my itinerary was complete.

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I drove down on the Friday night, having only the briefest of disagreements with the sat nav.  But that’s a compulsory element of travelling these days. I was soon being welcomed by Barbara, and introduced to the other house guests for the weekend, including a mother and daughter from Texas who were fascinated by my jigging and jogging plans.

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The house has a lovely garden patio area at the back, and I was able to introduce Barbara to the joys of watching the space station sail overhead.

Access:

On Saturday morning I donned my tartan leggings, and let the sat nav take me to Marlay Park.

marlay 013However, 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.

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Facilities:

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The start and finish are beside the children’s playground, where there a few shabby toilets.  There are nicer ones in a block down the lane, and more by the big house.

marlay 032There’s plenty of parking – there needs to be as this has regularly over 500 runners.

marlay 016So a good funnelling system is in place.

Music is played to add to the atmosphere.

Afterwards, many go to the stalls set up by the big house, offering coffees, wheatgrass juice, paella, and buns galore.

Course:

It’s basically one lap of the park with a few legs added.

It does go down as far as the house, and the start and finish are at the same place.  There’s an uphill section during the first k, which does serve to thin the runners out a bit.  Though some of the narrow sections still get a little bottle-necked.

The park itself is just beautiful, with lots of lovely features including a walled garden, little bridges, and a miniature railway which operates on Saturday afternoons.

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Crowd:

It seemed to be a fairly young crowd, and indeed I got chatting in the scanning line to Adam, who had just done his first parkrun.

marlay 029Well done, young man!

Strangely Appropriate Song On Shuffle:

I’m still listening to Eurovision songs, and I enjoyed “Time is Like Thunder”, the Belarus entry from 2015, with the lady playing the violin in a giant egg-timer.

 

Time:

My own time was an OK-ish 29 something.  I do try to aim for sub-30 when visiting a run for the first time, especially when I don’t have my canine pulling pal.

marlay 030 I did find a friendly black dog to chase, which reminded me of how helpful running can be in dealing with dark thoughts.

And the rest:

The weather was glorious – blue skies and sunshine.  I caught a bus into town to meet my fellow dancers for a tour of the Mansion House, admiring all the coats of arms in the oak room.

I’d enjoyed the most delicious brunch at Eden, consisting of a courgette and potato cake, served with asparagus, poached eggs, hollandaise, and a very tasty balsamic roasted tomato, which I must try to recreate. Eden was worth visiting even just for the loos, with limericks painted on the doors and walls.

From there I’d wandered through the Powerscourt Townhouse, and was tempted by some beautiful pieces in Jean Cronin ‘s lovely vintage wear, settling in the end for a green swirly Clements Ribiero dress, before further tempation in the shape of Ruby, in the Hibernia Arcade, where I was seduced by a duck egg blue Orla Kiely.

Suitably shopped out, I went back to the house and changed for the evening into my purple/ green tartan skirt, which I wore with a purple shirt and choker.

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The dancing was great fun, and included some dances which had been written by or for the club’s instructors. The Elephant’s Stampede was tricky, but had us all laughing, while Rosalie’s Birthday Reel is one we had practiced beforehand.

 

There was a lovely supper provided, and a very convivial atmosphere all evening.  But my eyes were closing, and I slipped away at 11, where I was glad my sat nav remembered how to get me back to the BnB.  And I was home in time to see the space station fly over yet again – a perfect way to round off a weekend full of smiles.

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All my parkruns

 

Filed under: Dance, Parkrun, running, travel | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

Heaton parkrun

Posted on May 22, 2016 by lindaharley

I’ve visited Manchester a few times now, and I’m always struck by the buzz and friendliness of the place.  Jemima has been working on the Fagins Twist show with Avant Garde dance, and I pored over the calendar of performance dates to decide which one to attend.

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The Lowry Theatre in Salford was calling to me, especially as I had a long standing invitation to visit Heaton Park for one of Manchester’s largest parkruns.

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Access:
Heaton Park is on the Northern edge of the city, and I’d booked into the Heaton Park Premier Inn. I’d flown in early on Friday evening, and been most impressed by the metrolink tram system. A day ticket was a fiver, and there were stops near everywhere I wanted to go. The trams were clean and frequent, with free wifi and plenty of seats available.

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I went to the theatre first to catch Jem after the show, and deliver the essential bags of Tayto Cheese and onion.

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Even though it suggest that Harbour City is the stop for the theatre, actually Media City is closer. AND it’s got the Blue Peter garden beside it!


I made the rookie error of getting off at Heaton Park tramstop. While that would be fine for going to the parkrun, it was a bit of a hike to get to the hotel, and after walking round in circles for a while I ended up taking a taxi.

 

Course:
Saturday dawned a bit damp and dreich, but we parkrunners don’t let a little bit of rain put us off, oh no! I’d arranged to meet S at the famous lions in front of the old house, and I admired to wonderful vista over the city from that point.

The start and finish point is just in front of the house, and there’s a very efficient funneling system in place, with scanning and admin type stuff happening in a gazebo by the side.

Immediately after the start, there’s a sharp left turn past the orangery, and with so many people, this can get a little bottle-necked.

After that, the paths are all lovely and wide, with no surface issues. There’s a little loop past a boating lake and a cafe with people enjoying their morning bacon butties, and a long slog uphill past the 4km mark.

This is tantalizingly close to the end point which is visible to the right, but a final winding section behind the house has to be completed, before it opens out into a straight flat finish.

Crowd:
There were 524 runners this morning, and that was a low attendance. Good range of young and old, speedy and not so speedy, some dogs and buggies, including these 2 lovelies.

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Time:
Being a big run, pacers are a regular feature. I usually aim for sub-30 when visiting a new parkrun without my canine companion, and decided I would keep the 29 minute pacer in my sights.

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Full credit given to him, I came in bang on 29:00, with thanks also to S coaching me to a sprint finish. I was also pleased that I was 3rd in my age category, which is not bad for a big event.

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Strangely Appropriate Song on Shuffle:
I was listening to the recent Eurovision soundtrack, and was given a boost by Belgium’s “What’s The Pressure”, with its inspirational “get the best of me” lyrics.

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Dancing Bit:
Fagin’s Twist is an astonishingly brilliant and breathtaking performance – do try to catch it if it’s in your area.

Avant Garde website

The set was very clever, on wheels and with many little doors and openings. And the dancers are jaw-droppingly physically amazing. My old school chum Ruth came along with me, and it was her first experience of contemporary dance. It’s a very accessible piece, with some narrative, a clear story-line and readily identifiable characters. I will definitely be going to see it again during its 2 weeks in London in October, and no doubt I can pick up another of the capital’s parkruns while I’m there.

List of all the parkruns I’ve completed.

Filed under: Dance, Parkrun, running, travel | 1 Comment »

Tim Page – Fit For Life

Posted on May 8, 2016 by lindaharley

This was a last minute decision.  I’d been chatting to Andrew Johnston of Andrews Animals .  We’ve met a few times at parkruns and Waggy Races.  We’re both members of the very exclusive IverunallthenornirnpakrunssoIhave Club, AND members of the “My running companion is a dog called Minnie” club.  He had a dog training thing to do in Antrim, so we agreed to meet at their parkrun and have a Minnie-race.  But thank goodness he did a last minute check to see if the event was on…..and it wasn’t!  There’s a fair on in the grounds of the park, which means the parkrun was cancelled for 2 whole weeks.  Funnily enough I’d bumped into some Antrim runners the previous Saturday in Enniskillen, as we modelled our hot-off-the-presses 100 shirts.

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And as I was there for a weekend’s Scottish dancing, I modelled my tartan leggings, which earned me the nickname “The Flying Scot”.  This blog’s not called Dancing At Lunacy for nothin’, ya know!

Anyhoo.  No Antrim.  But I remembered that Tim Page was going to be at Queens that day, so it seemed a good time to go and meet him.

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Tim is a 4 time cancer survivor who is running all 22 of NI’s parkruns to raise money and awareness of leukaemia and lymphoma research.  I’d read some of his earlier run reports, and followed him on Facebook, and was delighted when he come out of the door at Queens and greeted me and Minnie by name!

Tim Page’s page

We had a quick chat and admired my T shirt – I’ve promised I’ll make him one too, when he completes his journey at Stormont later this year.  We agreed that each parkrun has its own little personality and quirks, but the over-riding common feature is the support and warmth.  It’s so much more than “just” running.

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I wore my muscle leggings, which always attract a smile, and the weather was kind enough to hold off on the rain for a while.  My first lap was pretty smart, but my pace ebbed away during the second lap, and I was about a minute off my last time here.

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I tethered Minnie to the pup-park, where she actually behaved nicely for a change!  And clapped and cheered the final runners over the finish line.  I gave Tim a big hug and a well done, and he smiled and said “It’s good to be alive”.

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Having changed phones recently, my playlist was a bit different from the previous one, and the strangely-appropriate-song on this day was Talk Talk with “Life’s What You Make It”.

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Well, I’ll leave you with my own motto: there’s more to running than going fast.

Please donate, follow and share Tim’s blog and fundraising page!

Tim’s blog

Tim on Twitter

 

Filed under: belfast, Parkrun, running | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Runner of the Week

Posted on March 26, 2016 by lindaharley

It’s been quite a week in the world of running.  Even though I did precious little ACTUAL running, I did manage to get to a Body Pump class, and strength work is very important in improving performance.

Firstly, I changed my car.  The little yellow Fiat 500 (Travis was its name) was very cute, and lots of people remarked that it was very “me”, but it was just too small to fit 2 large dogs in any way comfortably.  Minnie could fit in the boot, but it was a tight squeeze, and she had recently discovered that she could climb over into the back seat and beyond, which is just not safe.  Max could fit in the back seat with a seatbelt attachement, but it was a real palaver to get everybody in and out.

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Room for everyone!

My main criterion when looking at a replacement car was the height of the sill into the boot area.  Many cars that would otherwise be great canine-friendly vehicles failed on this test.  And it was almost by chance that I happened upon the Nissan Note, but after taking it for a test drive I was pretty sure this was the car for me!

Both dogs fit comfortably in the back, and even Max jumps in without too much cajoling.  Little dog usually lives up to her nickname of “Moaning Minnie” in the car, but the whinging is definitely at a lower level, now that she has room to turn around and find a good spot.  As it is a blue Note, its name is Harold Melvin.

Next, I was featured in the parkrun UK weekly magazine, as “parkrunner of the week”.  I have to thank one of the Wallace run directors, Michael Harris, for nominating me, and the feature was spotted by parkrun chums on Mumsnet, h2g2, and Twitter.  My Mum was of course enormously proud, and is showing it to everyone.

parkrun newsletter

During Monday night’s training run, my headphone batteries died, so I had to resort to other distraction techniques.  I like playing with numbers in my head (I loved the Irish Eurovision entry last year of this name – shame it didn’t do better!) and I started working out how many parkruns Minnie has done with me.  Some were obvious – she hasn’t done the far flung ones like Derry or Limavady, and she hasn’t done any in Scotland or England.  MUSA is a no-dog run, and I knew there was one Bangor run I’d been without her as I was doing my sighted guide training.  The only question mark was Wallace.  She’s done MOST of the 72 runs that I’ve clocked up there, but not all.  I reckoned a generous estimate was that she’d missed 10 of them.  So she’s done over 90 in total.  I will be making her a 100 vest when the time comes, but meanwhile, I reckoned I could turn the purple T shirt she wore last week to Liz’s 100th run into a club vest.

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It’s fun to run at the Wa—-llace parkrun!

So I ordered the letters DOG LISBURN from Amazon, and they arrived in time for me to iron them in place.

dog vest

Club T shirt

So now we had the attire, and the right mode of transport, where would we go?  Ecos and Bangor (both high on my list of “events where I’m sure I could run faster than last time”) were having birthdays, complete with cake.  Wallace was having its monthly pacer session, but it was the news that Stormont had re-measured its course, and it was now a good 100m shorter, that proved the most persuasive.

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Where shall we go?

The weather was not kind, and it was damp and miserable.  As we parked up in the hotel’s capacious car-park, and elderly gent joined us, admiring Minnie’s outfit.  He was pretty new to parkrun, so I gave him a rough idea of the course, but took him to say hi to the volunteers.  A few people recognized me from the parkrun newsletter, and I recognized a few people and dogs from other events.

stormont purple ladies

All the purple ladies, all the purple ladies, now put your hands UP!

The run itself went smoothly – I felt my pacing was pretty good, I wasn’t over-pushing myself too early, and Minnie’s impetus up the few hills was working well.  My previous best time here was 26.40, so I was hopeful that the shorter course would see me in the 25s.  As it was, I even managed to break 25, and came in as 4th lady in 24.56, with the 3rd best aged-graded percentage of the day.  Gotta love age-grading: as with many things in life, the trick is just to keep going.

Fellow Waggy-racers Claire and Cash (named after Johnny…) were first female finisher -well done!

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Well done Claire and Cash!

Strangely-appropriate-song on shuffle was “C-lebrity” by Queen with Paul Rogers, with the line “I wanna get my features in magazines” making me smile.

 

 

All the parkruns I’ve done

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Dogs, eurovision, Parkrun, running | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

May the Fours be with you!

Posted on February 27, 2016 by lindaharley

A cold and crisp, but ice-free Saturday morning in February.  What better way to enjoy it than to go along to the 4th anniversary celebrations at Queens parkrun!

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A few of my Jog Lisburn girlies came along too – it was Liz’s first time back here since she had a nasty fall, and they now have a warning sign at the steep slope that was the culprit.

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I hadn’t done any runningwithdogs for a fortnight, after a spectacularly bad fall when my big dog decided to chase some cyclists on the towpath. I ended up with some colourful bruised elbows and knees, but it could’ve been an awful lot worse – I could’ve broken a bone, or twisted an ankle, or ended in the river.  Or Max could’ve caught the cyclists and THEY might’ve ended in the river!

Anyway, Minnie was very excited to be allowed to join me, and couldn’t wait to get going.

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4th power was the name of an all-girl singing sensation on X-factor recently. but I was feeling the power of four this outing.  I passed the 1km marker at just over 4 minutes, and was hitting 3km at 14 mins. Just after the 4km marker, the unmistakable tattooed calf of parkrun Jim strode past, and I tried to keep him in sight for the final stretch.

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I did lose about 14 seconds stopping to tie a shoelace, and though at one point I thought I might reach my all time PB of 24.15, I was a bit outside that, but still in the 24s (just!), which was a PB for this course.

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Queens is very lucky to have such good indoor facilities, and the post run tea and coffee was accompanied by some delicious and colourful fruit platters, and a mountain of very popular bacon butties.

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I even got to take a selfie with parkrun Jim, and congratulate him on his recent achievement of being the first person in Ireland to earn his 250 shirt.

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Portrush parkrun revisited

Posted on February 14, 2016 by lindaharley
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sand sea and sky

I was dithering over which parkrun to go to this weekend: I was visiting my parents in Portstewart, so Portrush would be closest.  But the tide was due to be really high, and running on soft sand, rocks, or splashing through the surf doesn’t lend itself to speed.  I want to have my black 100 shirt before I go back to Derry, and felt a bit wary about joining the small number of quite fast runners at Limavady.  I was also tempted to scoot back to Belfast to join parkrunJim as he became the first person in Ireland to run 250.  But I’d eventually decided to go to Ecos on the way home.  And then I slept in till 8.45!  Portrush was the only choice.

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Is there ANY sand to run on?

Aside from the high tide, conditions were pretty good!  There wasn’t much of a breeze, and though it was chilly, there was a  good turnout of over 100, including a Run Mummy Run event. Work is ongoing at the promenade, so the start has been moved to further along the beach, and an extra loop at the start was added to avoid going as far as the rocks.

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The start

It’s definitely the course to try running barefoot, and quite a few people had naked tootsies splashing through the surf, and leaving lovely footprints in the soft sand.

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footprints

I used the tactic of just running in a straight line, not trying to skirt the waves, but it was still a very slow pace.  I waved goodbye to any thoughts of a PB, and just enjoyed the gorgeous surroundings.

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Waving goodbye to a PB

The finish line had been drawn in the sand, and I did my trademark skip-change over it.

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Drawing a line in the sand

I assured the mumsnet parkrunners that there would be TraybakesTheSizeOfYourHead afterwards: I managed to get a photo of the compulsory fifteens before they were all scoffed!

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TraybakesTheSizeOfYourHead

The Strangely Appropriate Song on Shuffle was Matt Cardle “Run for your life….you’ll get there in time”.

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I see the sea

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