It was time for the club’s monthly tourism this weekend, set for the shiny new course at Ushaw Historic House near Durham. Last winter saw two separate attempts to visit Newbiggin scuppered by weather-enforced cancellations, and it seemed like the curse might be back, incredibly wet conditions across the north-east leading Ushaw to cancel what would have been only their 6th event on Friday evening.
Lena, our tourism don, made an executive decision to switch the plan to a nearby course that seemed guaranteed to be on, and so a small group ended up by the riverside in Prudhoe. For those of us returning, it was a chance to try out the new route, which now starts much further back down the path, contains an early out and back, before 1 lap of the old loop in reverse, and a finish in the overflow car park.
Lena continued her seemingly unbreakable streak with yet another course PB, crossing the line almost in step with Mark Flynn, who set a new parkrun best (admittedly only his second parkrun, but a PB is a PB!). Shilpa Iyanna appropriately celebrated recently turning 50, by completing her 50th parkrun at a muddy, but rain-free canter. Her achievement was topped off, by Cath’s insistence she educate herself in the national delicacy that is the toasted teacake.
There were also course PB’s for both Luke O’Neill and Peter Noble at Jesmond Dene, and Eddie Smith at one of his semi-regulars, Quakers Walk in Wiltshire.
Eddie may have been enjoying cosy familiarity, but Ann was branching out, turning up at the windswept Athlone Regional Sports Centre in the middle of Ireland, a parkrun established only 18 months ago, cheered on with shouts of “come on Newcastle” as she completed the course. A bit further into the EU, with a marathon planned for the following day, Lucy Ward rubbed everyone’s faces in the balmy, storm-free weather she and Rob experienced at Uditore in Palermo. Chris Jones meanwhile, took his porridge at Wormwood Scrubs back in London.
This week’s big globetrotters were Gill and Tom, who naturally had parkrun as an important agenda item on their Japanese trip, visiting Hattori Ryokuchi park in Osaka.
Having the last word as ever, Joyce Archibold continued her world-beating ways, achieving her second-highest ever age-grading of 102.99% at Leazes.
