Both Town Moor and Leazes were called off last-minute this week, for unexpectedly early festival preparations and a frustratingly lacking volunteer roster respectively. This double-cancellation may or may not have contributed to our having five runners apiece at the two local denes, Anton Mirafsari going steady for a course PB at Jesmond.
The other course PB’s of the week went to Lucy Ward at Durham and Dave Roberts at Whitley Bay. Catherine Young racked up yet another 1st lady place at Fulwell Quarry, and while neither podium nor PB, Luke Woodend notably ran his fastest parkrun for 3 years at Keswick (significantly, the same course as that previous time). Jury is still out as to whether the new “cheaty bouncy shoes” made the difference…
On the tourist trail this week, Zoë Jukes just about won furthest travelled, way down in the south west at Shepton Mallet. Further east, Tom & Gill ticked off an overdue ‘O’ in Greater London, at the National Trust’s Osterley Park. Only 3 easy letters left…
The Smiths were the latest to head to the magnificent Holyrood at Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, Ann harnessing the infamous downhill section to record her fastest ever mile!
Third and final on the Claremont-couple ramble-roster this week, Cate and I used a visit to Liverpool to check out the ‘iron men’ at Crosby on the northern shoreline. The men are “cast-iron, life-size sculptures created by Sir Antony Gormley, installed along a 3km stretch of the beach, facing out to sea. The sculptures are cast from the artist’s own body and have been a permanent fixture on the Sefton coast near Liverpool since 2005”.
The first mile of the course is an out-and-back on the beach. The main instruction: always keep the iron men on your left, to avoid colliding with oncoming runners after the turn (we were also treated to a blast of Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’ before the Run Director’s briefing). The sand was nice and firm, though a reasonable wind did whip at us a bit. I was briefly duped at the turning point, mistaking an iron man decked out in hi-viz for a living, breathing marshal.
A quick scuttle across a patch of softer sand and up some steps to the promenade actually heralded the trickiest part of the course, as the primarily concrete section was intermittently punctuated by large drifts of sand, which were harder going than the actual beach! One marshal here was assisted by a hi-fiving Sweep (but no Sooty).
Reaching the second turning point at the Coastguard station, the final mile took us back down towards the leisure centre near the start. This proved the easiest part, as despite being on grass, it was nicely flat and even, with the dunes finally sheltering us from the wind. Varied terrain, sea views, and stoic sentries in the sand, would recommend!
