parkrun tourism: Dundalk

Posted on September 24, 2017 by lindaharley

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Number 181, number 43 in my quest to reach 50 different events (half Cowell), and most importantly, the final letter in my spelling of DANCER!

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Access:

From my house in Lisburn, this is less than an hour away.  Down the N1/M1, off at Junction 16, turn left at the traffic lights before the Crowne Plaza, and the Dundalk Institute of Technology is on your right.  It is helpfully marked by brown signs all the way in from the motorway.

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Facilities:

On a Saturday, there’s loads of car parking available!  The course starts near the big wind turbine, so head for that and find a spot.

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There are toilets (and indeed changing rooms with showers!) on site.

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Tea is only provided once a month, but there’s a handy service station across the road which has a cafe and shop (and where I bought Minnie a Jumbone afterwards).  Start and finish are close, though not exactly the same spot, and there’s a tree that runners adorn with their bags and belongings. On the finish stretch, you have to tantalisingly pass the actual finish funnel before rounding the turn point.

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Course:

It’s not the most scenic of courses, being 3 laps of the playing fields with a bit added on to start and finish.  But it’s pretty flat – there’s a very small incline on one side of the fields, but you’d barely notice it.

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The surface is mostly tarmac-ish, and it’s quite narrow.  Being a 3 lap course, it’s likely you’ll be lapped by the front runners during lap 2, but will have a nice bit of space on lap 3.  There was good marshalling at every corner, and I made a point of counting the final marshall to keep track of my laps.

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Crowd:

Average numbers are about 100, with a good range of times.  I got chatting to an Irish dancer called Ann before the run, and there was a friendly welcome from all.

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Gear:

I’m having Garmin troubles, so I used MapMyRun as a backup (only to discover later that it hadn’t worked). My headphones are kaput so I was running without music.  Which did allow for a few more conversations – Minnie aways attracts “cheating” comments, and I point out that it’s a free weekly timed run, not a race!  My comedy 150 red shirt was a conversation starter, and as I overtook a couple of youngsters they wondered what happend if the doggie pooped.  I was able to reply that I would stop and pick it up – I always carry at least 2 bags!

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Time:

My running form isn’t the best at the minute, and I was aiming for 29ish, which I acheived.  Considering I had to stop and tie a shoelace even before reaching the turning point for the first time (ie about 50m), that’ll do.

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And the rest:

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This was a super special run for me, as it was the final run in my parkrunDANCER project.

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All my parkruns:

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NI (and other) parkruns: summary list

 

 

Filed under: Parkrun, parkrunDANCER, running | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

parkrunDANCER

Posted on September 23, 2017 by lindaharley

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: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »