The recent heatwave took a break for this weekend’s parkrun – or at least it did on Tyneside where lower temperatures and a light drizzle made for good running conditions.
Mark Flynn made the most of the conditions with a PB at Windy Nook, and Antony Darne notched up his 2nd PB in 3 weeks at his regular haunt of Riverside. Meanwhile, down the road at Fulwell Quarry, the Claremont ladies scored a 1-2 with Lena Lou just pipping Catherine Young to 1st female. Not content with being the top two ladies, Lena and Catherine were 3rd and 4th overall.
Most of the tourism this week was of the “visiting home” variety, and it provided the opportunity for more PBs. Ann and Eddie Smith both recorded their best times at Quakers Walk in Devizes, and Yana Bevan did the same at Dartford Heath. Cate Walker and Laurie Johnson made the trip across the border into North Wales from Cate’s native Cheshire, to visit the strangely named Park in the Past – we need to know more, so Cate duly obliged:
“We had been looking for a parkrun to do in North Wales on our next trip to Cheshire as despite Wales’ proximity, I still hadn’t done a parkrun there (having Delamere on the doorstep means I don’t tend to go elsewhere when visiting my family!). I was of course keen to get the extra flag for the profile though so we looked at the map to find parkruns just over the border.
Park in the Past jumped out because of the intriguing name. It didn’t exist when I was growing up, but is a restored former quarry which has been made into a heritage park, complete with a Roman Fort, which we ran through twice on the route.
I was disappointed that the marshalls were not dressed as Roman centurions, but it was a lovely, friendly parkrun complete with its own disco corner (I think I heard music from at least three decades as we ran past, so a nod to the more recent past). The ground was incredibly dry and dusty, so trail shoes definitely not needed, despite what it says on the course page, but people at the startline reassured us it gets pretty muddy in winter.
The highlight was of course running through the Roman fort, and there was a nice out and back next to a lake at the end. After the parkrun we went to ‘Cafe in the Past’ which had displays about the restoration project and idea behind the park, as well as a view of slightly random abandoned objects that haven’t made it into the park (yet), most notably a wooden Viking longboat!”
