For many of us, parkrun is the best way to start the year. With the big 3 Newcastle events choosing to have a lie-in, Denton Dene proved the most popular choice for Claremonters, closely followed by Blyth Links.
Jack Shawcross started the year with a win and a PB at Prudhoe (though he is listed under his first claim club of Heaton, I thought this was definitely worth a mention!). Also showing that Christmas and New Year festivities are no barrier to performance were Alex Harding and Lena Lou with PBs at Blyth Links and Denton Dene respectively.
Not surprisingly, there were limited opportunities for tourism, though Alex Anslow managed to find a parkrun in Norfolk and Gill Milne and I were lucky to have a New Year’s parkrun just a 10 minute walk from our friends’ house in Millfield Park, Easingwold. It is a nice, 3 lap course that we have done before, but numbers were swelled to double the usual, mainly by visitors from York where the parkruns were having a day off. This made for a congested start on the narrow paths and it took a while for the field to spread out and allow everyone to run at their own pace. Before the start we were talking to a lady from Sunderland who is one the Run Directors at Silksworth and was celebrating her 250th run. It caused some merriment and a few “Oohs” amongst the locals when tourists from Sunderland and Newcastle were announced in quick succession! I am happy to say that the friendly parkrun spirit prevailed.
