Although she may yet do another parkrun in Britain before moving to that land down under, this was definitely the last Leazes parkrun for Maria Duenas. As such, there was not just the expected good turnout of Claremonters volunteering and running, but lots of people came from all over the country just to see her off! OK, I admit that they might have been here for a certain half-marathon on the Sunday, but it definitely added to the celebratory atmosphere – as did the hot and humid weather (and, yes, Howard did take his top off!).
A lot of the participants were having steady runs with the GNR in mind, but Mark Anderson “forgot” and finished second in a time not too far off his PB! There were also course PBs for Jason Tipples, Howard MacLennan and Cate Walker. Cate had formed part of Maria’s “guard of honour” as we ran the route together – though Maria did try to lose a few of us by starting a sprint for the line from partway up the final hill! Afterwards many of the runners and volunteers joined Maria for her last post-Leazes coffee, complete with speech from Mungai (who hadn’t been able to make it to the pub on Monday).
There was a sprinkling of Claremont Road Runners at other local events, with another 2nd place – this time for Roberto Marzo (who should also have been taking it easy) at Prudhoe Riverside. The only tourism this week came from Dave Roberts, who took in Portrush parkrun whilst visiting Northern Ireland.
