I was inspired by a member of parkrun tourists UK, who had enjoyed an ice cream after each parkrun, often a cornetto. And who posted photos, often with the hashtag #parkruncornetto. Even though his mates teased him about this being a “thing”!
And so he decided to run a series of parkruns that would spell out “parkruncornetto”. And when he had accomplaished this, his mates presented him with a T shirt suitably emblazoned with “#parkruncornetto – it’s a thing!”
Heading into summer 2017, I knew I was visiting Scotland, and the United States. So I looked at the parkruns I might be able to visit during those trips, as well as some near events that had missing letters of my alphabet. This gave me Edinburgh, Crissy Field (in San Fran) and Navan. With a bit of creative thinking I could see that I could spell, using other locally available letters, DANCER. I’ve been a dancer all my life, with a core of ballet, but also incorporating tap, salsa, and line dancing, and most recently have thrown my devotion to Sottish Country Dancing, where I’m hoping to become a qualified teacher.
Sooooooo…offf we went. In order to have the word read correctly on event history, they have to be run in reverse order. So first up was local run Rostrevor! I’d run it before at Christmas time, but didn’t manage to beat my previous time. But I did meet a guy who asked “Were you on a double decker bus 30 years ago?” who turned out to be BBC film maker who interviewed me and Ronan….
Loved Edinburgh, took the slow coach bus down from St Andrews along the Fife coast, just magical. My E for Emily girl, who I found in the new runners briefing, went on to be second lady!
I found the waiting, the gap bewteen letters, to be enoormously frustrating. I did a bit of volunteering at my home run, Wallace, but getting out of the routine of Saturday means parkrun was discombobulating.
Off to the States for our super dooper trip that we’d been planning for years, including running Crissy Field parkrun in San Fran. Which I learned, 2 days before, had been cancelled! aaargh, but hey ho, and I could re-schedule…..
Back in NI, I’d toyed with running my NENYD at Castleblayney, but a Saturday dancing lunchtime committment and a callout from Carrickferus for a VI guide changed my plans, and I was delighted to accompany Pete putting into practice my Guide Dogs training.
Navan was as planned, and had a realy great time running with them.
I knew I’d be in London to see my son working on Evitia – had originally planned Dulwich but that had to be changed to the only A in London – Ally Pally!
And oh my goodness, the last bit of the jigsaw – D and my nearest one is Dundalk!
Dundalk…Done Dancer!
Filed under: Parkrun, running | Tagged: AllyPally, Carrickfergus, Dundalk, Edinburgh, Navan, parkrunDANCER, Rostrevor | 3 Comments »
Dancing At Lunacy 