The start of a new month, and glimmers of Spring may have been in the air. OK, it wasn’t warm exactly, but with cancellations borne from frozen courses in not too distant memory, it was decent, sunny weather for running in the north east. Jesmond Dene celebrated their 200th event, though Ken McCormick was our only representative at this milestone.
Lily Crouzier certainly shouldn’t have been feeling the cold, with temperatures in the low 20’s as she visited Greenpoint in Cape Town for the second week running. A bit further north, Aoífe Monaghan followed the well-trodden tourism path to Zuiderpark in The Hague, with Jack Shawcross.
We had a few tourists remaining UK-bound. Becky Webster visited Eastville in Bristol (having run this one myself, it features some nice lakeside running, but also an enormous hill that has to be tackled more than once!), while closer to home, Aaron Mansell took in the beauty of Fountains Abbey, a location that only attracts the highest, lavish praise from all who’ve attended.
Having intended to take on Gunnersbury in West London, Luke Woodend found himself at Ferry Meadows as “due to standard Friday night east coast mainline chaos I got stranded in Peterborough”. A cow on the line may have scuppered his original plan, but it proved fortuitous for Luke, as he udderly smashed it on the super flat course, dipping under 25 minutes for the first time since November 2022!
Further accolades were to be had by the hatful back in Tyne and Wear. Catherine Young and Heather Steel finished as 2nd and 1st woman at Fulwell Quarry and Gateshead respectively. At Town Moor, Tara Hipwood persisted with her super recent form, earning a fantastic overall parkrun PB, joined in that feat by Ailsa Ralph, with Niamh Garratt and Zöe Jukes finishing together to both set course PB’s.
Down by the river in Prudhoe, Jamie Armstrong destroyed his parkrun PB from a month ago by almost a minute-and-a-half, finishing 2nd in the process, while down by the other river, Lucy Ward ran a strong course PB at Chester-le-Street. Over at the coast, Peter Henderson could feel accomplished, running his first sub-30 minute time for a year at Whitley Bay.
To Leazes, where sometime club handicap guest Silvia Velastegui-Cortez was presented with flowers on completing her 100th parkrun, but some metaphorical flowers could also have been bestowed upon Harry Mawdsley, who racked up yet another 1st place, and an overall parkrun PB that saw him take almost a minute off his previous Leazes best.
