It was a wet one in the north East of England, but a few canny Claremonters headed south in search of the sun – one as far as Cape Town!
There was an excellent turnout of sky blues at our parkrun home of Leazes Park, with 12 runners (well, 11 runners and a tail walker!) being joined by a further 8 club members volunteering. While Mark Anderson finished 3rd and Tara Hipwood continued her recent good form with a course PB, special mention must go to the Wards, Lucy and Rob, who turned up despite their planned train from Durham being cancelled. They had to start a few minutes behind everybody else, but both finished with smiles on their faces.
We had a couple of ladies topping the podium – Catherine Young, as she so often is, was 1st at Fulwell Quarry and Lena Lou matched this at Herrington Country Park, where, you will not be surprised to read, she ran a course PB. There were PBs and 2nd female finishes for Aoife Monaghan at Blyth Links, and Heather Steel at Gateshead. Laurie Johnson was 3rd on his first outing at Elemore Park. There were also PBs for Claire Taylor in Barnard Castle and Dave Roberts at Whitley Bay. Some very good performances there, despite the conditions.
Moving on to this week’s tourists, we had Niamh Garratt on familiar ground at Markeaton, and we had two representatives in London. Luke Woodend, down in the capital for the Wings for Life World Run, but unfortunately not for the National League play-off at Wembley, added Southwark parkrun to his long list; and Cath Robson continued her tour of north London venues with a visit to the wonderfully named Sunny Hill:
“Back in north London but now on a different bus route I headed west to Sunny Hill* parkrun (the first Claremonter, I think) located between the A1 and M1. It’s a new set of suburbs for me across there in the NW postcodes and my top deck, front seat journey reminded me just how hilly it is – more on that later… The route is basically two and a bit undulating circuits of Sunny Hill Park through mixed woodland and across open grassy areas on tarmac paths. We were warned in the briefing that it includes two goes at ‘The (appropriately named) Beast’ and I was pleased to get to the top without walking both times and sufficiently conscious to be able to appreciate the wide ranging views out towards woody Hertfordshire to the north and the Wembley Arch in the south-west. Definitely had the feel of a local parkrun with a friendly volunteer team, about 100 finishers, very few tourists and a well used cafe with toilets open before the event. And I got ‘1st in age category’ which seems to double up as ‘Only in age category’ so ‘Go me!’ *both sunny and hilly!”
Further afield, it was Antony Darne who ventured to Rondebosch Common in Cape Town – a first for him. Our other international travellers were the Smiths, who went to collect a ‘Z’ in Holland, thus completing their alphabet. It also meant that they could act as a scouting mission for our club trip next month! As well as reporting on the price of toilets and train tickets, Ann described the course as “It was a flat, smooth two-lap course. Only potential hazards are bikes (cyclist is king in Netherlands) and geese. We went to Parkoers, a cafe on the other side of the park, for coffee and pancakes .The parkrun team turned up for barcode sorting etc. Afterwards we got a bus to the beach, then another back to the city. A lovely day out and a nice sunny parkrun in an interesting location.”
