Leazes Park defied the cold temperatures to have (mainly) ice-free paths to be the only one of the Newcastle parkruns to take place this Saturday. However, the course had to be diverted to avoid one icy stretch around the lake, thus adding extra distance and a short extra hill on each lap! The numbers were also swelled by regulars from the Town Moor and Jesmond Dene – the 354 runners was a Leazes Park record.
So, our latest Couch to 5K group had a tough graduation and a tough initiation to parkrun. Unfortunately 2 of the group could not be there, with Chris unavailable and Ronan spraining his ankle a few days before. The other 5 rose to the challenge and, with great support from their new Claremont family (Cath’s cowbell was greatly appreciated!), seemed to enjoy it. Christine Heriot even managed to pull her support runner, Mary Martin, to a course PB! I can promise them that their next Leazes parkrun will be shorter, less hilly and a lot less crowded.
Post-run coffee was at a new location, the Lost Wanderer, where we had the upstairs to ourselves for post-run chat, the C25K presentation and token sorting!
Elsewher, Mark Anderson clocked up a PB at Gateshead, but special mention must go to Jack Shawcross who ventured to Poland to collect a “Z”. Jack came 2nd despite, in his own words, “getting my choice of footwear hideously wrong. Hiking sticks and crampons were out and my Endorphin Pro’s were laughed at”.
