Tag Archives: buggy running

parkrun tourism: St Mary’s parkrun

by Ben

Given that it seems more and more likely that parkrun will be suspended soon, we were eager to get out and parkrun this weekend. We umm-ed and ahh-ed quite a bit about where to go: ideally we wanted to tick off a new location, but I’d had a loooong week at work, and so didn’t want to travel too far. Also, all the weather lately meant that there were a few courses that would still be more or less a no-go with the buggy.

Ultimately, we went to bed still unsure. We had two options: St Mary’s parkrun, which would be a new location for all of us, or Ashton Court parkrun, which Lolly and I had ran back on New Years’ Day 2016. In the morning, we still didn’t really make a decision. Basically, we got in the car, I popped in the postcode for St Mary’s parkrun in Bridport, and that was that.

Now well used to our long parkrun drives, KK has found ways to keep himself entertained…

After an easy drive, just under an hour, we arrived at Bridport Football Club car park, which happily allowed parking via mobile app (JustPark). Less happily, Lolly needed the toilet, and it turned out that was in another car park, so having arrived in plenty of time, we drove around to another car park. The course description page lists that all three car parks are five minutes walk from the parkrun. This… isn’t quite true. The football club car park is only a couple of minutes walk from the start/finish. West Street car park, which we ended up in, is, well, more than five minutes away.

Anyway, all’s well that ends well: Lolly had an empty bladder, and we still made it in plenty of time. Well, around 8:55, anyway. I assume that we missed the first timer’s briefing, and I couldn’t really hear the run briefing thanks to a pair of runners next to me chatting about the Grizzly (which was rubbing salt into the wound somewhat, given that I had to miss it due to injury!)

The course is three laps, primarily on tarmac path, but with a short section of grass on the playing field each lap. Even with the recent wet weather, this wasn’t too muddy, though I certainly slowed significantly going through it on the third lap!

We had a relatively small field of 100 exactly, and as the start was two sides of the playing field, on the grass, it was wide and open. This prevented me from getting trapped at the back, as I often do when running with the buggy, and so I was almost immediately at ‘race pace’. Of course, this came with its own downside: I was in near uncharted territory with the buggy: normally I’m used to building my pace up, and continually passing people. Instead, within the first half mile, I was more or less in the right place.

After the grassy two sides of the playing field, we went around the other two sides on tarmac path, and then turned the other direction, away from the playing field, along the main path. We followed this out of the playing fields section of the course and into another part. This section was a little bit unusual for a parkrun, as it included a path that ran right in front of a block of houses: they literally have parkrun on their doorstep. It was also really good fun: the paths twisted and turned back upon one another, climbing and dropping as they did so. People talk about ‘Mario Kart’ courses, and while this was only a small section of the course, it certainly had that sort of feel.

After winding through this section, with a couple of very tight corners that necessitated back-wheel turns, we returned to the main path, and wound back towards the playing fields again. Continuing along the main path, with the playing fields on the right and the river on the left, we ran out of the park area, about 150 metres and then doubled-back 180 degrees around a cone. Another back-wheel turn! Once back by the playing fields, we turned left to start the course again. And again. After going around the cone for the third time and heading back to the playing fields, we continued straight on into the finish.

Other than the start, the course is pretty narrow, and I’m glad that I was running as part of a smaller field: put 2-300 around this course, and it would struggle. With the buggy I did have to tuck behind runners that I wanted to overtake or lap a couple of times due to runners coming the other way, but never for too long. Conversely, the tight confines made it a very communal run: I must have seen Lolly and Lani four or five times during the run as we looped past each other in various places on the course.

For me personally, it was a tough run. I haven’t run barely at all for the past four weeks due to a bit of tendonitis in my lower calf, and pushing myself for a 5k with the buggy was hard work. But really good fun. I don’t know when we’ll be able to tour, or indeed parkrun at all, again, so it was good to get a positive experience in this week.

I was baffled by being supplied with two teaspoons with my mug of tea. I’m clearly not trendy enough to understand.

After the run, we ambled back to drop off the buggy in the car, and then explored Bridport in search of breakfast. We eventually found Soulshine Cafe – it was a bit more expensive than we would normally go for, but boy was it good. If, maybe, a little… hippy-like. My full English breakfast came scattered with seeds, and the baked beans were a homemade mix. I’m normally a ‘simple, meat-first’ approach, but genuinely, it was really nice.

parkrun tourism: Lydiard parkrun

by Ben

Swindon parkrun was the first in the south west, starting on 6 March 2010. Since then it has taken place almost 500 times. At the start of November last year, it was held under the new name of “Lydiard parkrun” for the first time. It takes places in Lydiard Park, a 260-acre country park on the western edge of Swindon.

It wasn’t our first choice venue for running today. In fact, it wasn’t even our second choice:

Thanks to Joanne, for putting more effort into planning our parkrunning than we did…

So, yes… Stonehouse was waterlogged and cancelled. Wotton was also waterlogged, but went ahead anyway – but a look through the photos of the course made it pretty obvious that it wasn’t going to be appropriate to take a buggy. I might have coped okay, but it would have been unfair on the event team who had put a lot of effort into improving the course, for me to go rip it up with a buggy.

Joanne’s message to let me know how Wotton was looking was sent at 21:51, just as we were heading up to bed. Chances are that if she hadn’t messaged, we would either have never noticed, or only found out in the morning, when it would have been too late to come up with another plan. So at around 10 pm, we were frantically re-planning. Joanne’s mention of Lydiard was tempting, as it was one we had never been to, despite its age. The only downside was that it would involve getting up even earlier than we had been planning for Wotton… and getting the kids up.

Amazingly, the kids were already awake when we got up at 6:20. Even more amazingly, I jumped out of bed with the alarm! Some frantic car-packing and children-dressing later, we were on our way, just after 7 am. An hour-and-a-half later, and we were there!

They need to update their “What’s on” poster!

Pre-run

Lydiard Park is well signed from the M4, and has decent parking, though it does fill up in the winter, as they can’t use the overflow car park which gets muddy. We got there nice and early, so we could pay for the parking (using the mobile app – who carries coins these days?) and then use the toilets (right next to the car park, nice and clean.)

The start and first-timers briefing locations were well signed, and as you might expect for a well-established parkrun, went pretty smoothly. The only slight complaint I would make is that by the time the first-timers briefing had finished, all the regulars were lined up to go, which meant that I was stuck to the side of the runners with the buggy, worrying about having to potential ‘barge’ my way in to get started…

The run brief was very good – a quality sound system is always a huge help. As we were mostly lined up to start, the brief blended straight into a “3-2-1-Start!” which even Lolly and Lani at the back could hear very clearly.

The run

The start was very congested: thankfully a lovely gentleman let me straight into the pack, but I was already well behind the 27-minute pacer, and going… slowly. It had taken me a good ten to twenty seconds to even get over the start line: Lolly and Lani took pretty much exactly a minute. The paths were relatively wide, and good quality, but a bit more puddly than I had anticipated. Which made my choice of road shoes for this run… ill-advised.

Although the paths were wide, the number of runners on them meant that they were still too congested for me to make decent progress for the first kilometre or so. I got caught up at the back of the 27-minute-pacer pack, and it was only when Joanne shouted for runners to be aware of the buggy and to mind their ankles that I was able to work my way through – thanks again Joanne! (I never really like to shout “excuse me” at people, it feels like I’m suggesting I’m more important than they are or something…)

Once I was past the 27-minute pacer, I moved into much clearer space, and was able to pay more attention to the actual course. It starts with a short section out to join a two-lap loop, which is roughly triangular in shape, albeit with one corner cut off. The course is broadly flat, though it gently descends for most of the lap before a short, shallow climb back to the start/finish point. Essentially it is flat enough to be a slog, with the shallow hill just making it more of a slog. But maybe that was just because I was pushing a buggy around it.

After an early attempt to avoid the puddles to save my road shoes, I gave it up as impossible, and just went straight through everything, caking my lovely road shoes, my legs and my shorts in a layer of mud. The marshals were excellent all the way round, and it was very cute to hear a couple of quiet “Thank you marshal”s from KK in the buggy! The finish funnel was a bit narrow for a buggy, but this is because they were implementing a double-funnel for the busy parts of the run (which still wasn’t enough: at one point finishers were queuing at least twenty metres before the finish line. New Year, New You, obviously…)

Post-run

I got scanned, recovered my zoodie from the tarpaulin, and then headed back to the course to wait for Lolly and Lani. It’s possible that there was some chat with other runners and one of the marshals about how some people looked like they had run a completely different course – dry feet, no mud… Damn puddle dodgers! Once we had all finished, we headed to the cafe for an obligatory bacon bap (toasted teacake for Lolly) and cup of tea (just milk for the children), and then a short play in the play park. Short mostly because it was cold, and both children were shivering!

Overall, this was a really nice surprise of a parkrun. Mostly because we hadn’t been expecting to do it, and really knew very little about it. I liked the park itself, it was a pleasant and pretty environment to run in. If the weather had been a bit warmer, we would likely have hung around for a bit longer after. The event was well organised and very slick (apart from the overcrowding in the finish funnel, but that’s excusable with such huge numbers.) The cafe after was nice with a varied menu, and not too busy by the time we went in.

It was really nice to see Joanne before the run, and I think given all she did, I should probably dedicate this parkrunday to her!!

Once home, the clean-up operation began.

parkrun tourism: Rogiet parkrun

by Ben

Rogiet is a village in Wales which is more or less at the end of the Prince of Wales Bridge (the second Severn Crossing), and is pronounced with a hard g: “rog-it“. Until recently, Rogiet parkrun was not really on our radar to complete, as it is in the Wales region, rather than the south-west region. A couple of things have changed our priorities. As we’ve discussed before, one of our children gets car sick, which limits us somewhat for many of the south-west region that we have not completed yet, as they are quite long drives. Secondly, regions sort of don’t exist anymore.

So, how has our touring being going lately? Well… it hasn’t. As Lolly mentioned in her Summery Summary, we stopped for the summer holidays. Basically because I get travel anxiety and had no desire to be stuck in queues. Also, I like sleep. This makes me a bad parkrun tourist. Our last tourist parkrun was Torbay Velopark, on 6 July. In the interim, while Lolly has run parkrun almost every week, I have done it only once, a 21:07 at Longrun Meadow in early August.

After all this time, we were itching to get back out touring. Well… Lolly was. I had sort of got used to a Saturday lie-in. We quickly homed in on Rogiet, basically because it was the closest parkrun up the M5 for us. Although Bridport is a little bit quicker to get to, the road quality is somewhat lower, and so more… risky for car sickness. I’m sure we’ll bite the bullet soon, but not first week back.

I think Lolly was trying to get a nice atmospheric pre-run photo. Lani and I had other ideas…

The drive was a doddle: M5/M49/M4 and then come off and double back on ourselves through Magor and Undy to Rogiet. There was plenty of parking, and the event course page very usefully suggested an alternative car park which was next to both the toilets and a children’s play area. Both of these are pretty on-brand for us, so it was great to have that information. After arriving in what seemed like plenty of time, by the time we had used the toilets, got changed (me), got buggy out, and generally had to manage the children, we were getting a little bit pushed for time.

From the car park we were in (Rogiet Playing Fields car park, essentially the railway station overflow car park, which is free at the weekend), it was a relatively short walk over the railway bridge and down into the park. Despite our worries, we arrived in enough time for the run briefing, though we missed any first-timers briefing which might have happened.

As we gathered together for the start, I suddenly realised quite how few people there were. In fact, the attendance of 68 makes it my second smallest parkrun event, after the 49 people at Mount Edgcumbe back in 2016. Even in such a small field, there were two other buggies, which is great to see. When I started buggy running with Lani in 2014, I was something of a novelty, but now it is rare to go to a parkrun and not see at least one. (In fact, I’m coming up on a buggy milestone: Rogiet was my 46th buggy parkrun.) I lined up on the right-hand side of the pack, a couple of people back from one of the other buggies. (The third buggy was tailwalking.)

Before the run, I didn’t know much about the course. I knew that it was mostly on grass, and Lolly told me on the way that it was three laps, and multi-terrain. That was the full extent of my knowledge. I had guessed that it might be another of the flat, bland sports field courses. It was not. We headed out on a grassy track; it was lumpy and scattered with wild growth. I frequently drove the buggy straight through little shrub things right in the middle of the path.

Wedged between the motorway and the railway line, but you wouldn’t know it!

After weaving its way all the way to what I assume is the end of the park, the course turned a sharp 180 degrees, with cheery mini-marshals offering high-fives just before and after. The only ‘hill’ of the course comes immediately after the turn, a short shallow climb immediately followed by the corresponding descent. Even with the buggy this wasn’t much of a climb. The course was pretty narrow along this stretch back for a time, giving no overtaking chances, especially for a buggy.

The route kisses for a short two-way section before forking back off to the right, for the rally segment. This part, in the field we had started in, was very up-and-down side-to-side, which really tested both the buggy’s suspension, and my ability to keep the buggy upright at speed. It was a lot of fun though!

Rinse and repeat, and repeat. After taking it relatively easily on the first lap, I eased quicker as I went along, and managed to run the whole thing with progressive splits. Despite the small field size, I was shocked to finish in 7th, in what was my third-quickest buggy time (23:23), trailing Longrun Meadow (22:56) and Torbay Velopark (22:58), both of which are naturally quicker courses.

Blimey, they do look like they’re enjoying it, don’t they?

After the run, I was pretty thirsty, but had stupidly left my water bottle (along with my phone) back in the car. I accordingly stole both items from Lolly as they came around to complete their second lap. (Her water bottle and phone, obviously. She didn’t miraculously have mine.) While I waited for them to finish their third lap, I had a nice chat to the run director, while KK had fun playing with the cones in the finish funnel. Once Lolly and Lani had finished, we hung around for a little bit being sociable, before heading over to the play park.

Rogiet is a lovely little parkrun. Severn Bridge, just up the road, attracts all the headline tourism in the area because of the novelty. Honestly though? This was a much nicer location for a parkrun, and was such a great, friendly event.

Next up? I don’t know… can I have a lie-in again?!

Ben’s training diary: w/c 7 January 2019

by Ben

Last week, I discussed wanting to increase my mileage up to 40-50 km per week by the end of January. Typically then, this week I developed a cold. But, such is winter with two young children!

The week was disrupted somewhat as I was working away from home Tuesday – Wednesday – Thursday, but as I’ve done before, I managed to work my way around it, and arranged to join the City of Salisbury Athletics and Running Club for their Wednesday night club run.

Wednesday: 10 km with CoSARC

In fact, that Wednesday night run ended up being my first of the week. I’d intended to run on the Tuesday night, when I arrived at my Salisbury hotel, but I ended up getting in so late that I basically just ate and went to bed.

I arrived at the Five Rivers Leisure Centre with plenty of time to spare, and was impressed with the organisation – everyone had to sign in, and note down which group they were running with. There was a box to later tick to say you’d returned. This wasn’t something I’d come across before, but definitely seems like a very good idea.

I’d looked up beforehand, and decided to run with their group 6, doing roughly 6.5 miles (just over 10 km) at 9 min/mile. The joy of running with a group in a strange place is being able to simply run, rather than spend the entire time checking where you are, where you have to turn next, and generally just getting a bit stressed. Of course, it was somewhat typical that the first thing we did was run straight from the leisure centre to my hotel; one bit of road that I did know!

It was a nice run – I really don’t know the area well enough to be able to comment much on where we went, but I did notice when we ran through the park that hosts Salisbury parkrun, which we did way back in 2016. I ran mostly alone for the first half of our run, just listening to various conversations, before having a good natter for the second half of the run. Our pace was a smidgen faster than advertised, averaging 5:30 per kilometre (8:50 per mile) for 10.6 km.

Thank you very much to all involved with CoSARC for letting me run with you.

Thursday: General aerobic

When I got back on Thursday, I was more or less straight back out of the door for this run. It was a bit chilly, but I needed the miles. Nothing exciting, just a 7 km run around Taunton at a relatively steady pace; 5:30 per kilometre average again, with no single kilometre faster than 5:21 or slower than 5:40.

Bright winter clothing – though I really want to get something more reflective for winter road running.

Saturday: Thornbury parkrun

I wrote a full report in another blog post, so as usual, I’ll just discuss my actual run. This was a tough course with a buggy. I took it relatively easy for the first lap, but was constantly easing my way through the field, having started at the back. There were obviously points where I was able to make better progress (downhill, on tarmac) and places where I made less (uphill, on grass, narrow bits). and so the pace bounced up and down a little bit throughout the run. I pretty much ran negative splits throughout though; especially if you consider the grade-adjusted pace: 5:35, 5:24, 5:06, 5:01, 4:56. A time of 26:25 with the buggy is nothing to be scoffed at; it’s quicker than I did Weymouth, Barnstaple, Plymvalley, Shepton Mallet or Exeter Riverside. And obviously quicker than Mount Edgcumbe!

Weekly summary

My cold, which started to come through on Friday evening, nearly stopped us going to Thornbury parkrun: I’m bad enough in the mornings, and waking up with the start of a cold didn’t help. But I made the decision that if I was going to get a cold, I might as well run while i could, as it wasn’t going to make things much worse. I’m glad we did, especially as I then wasn’t able to run on Sunday due to being too thick with cold, and just plain wiped out. So for the week overall, I did 22.7 km, which was well under the 38.8 that I’d hit last week. Still, it was three decent runs, and I’m now up to five weeks of more regular running. Hopefully I can shake off the worst of this cold over the next couple of days, and get some more mileage in this week, but in all honesty, I’m not going to force things.

parkrun tourism: Thornbury parkrun

by Ben

We’re on something of a parkrun streak at the moment: before this weekend we had done parkrun on each of the last six parkrundays (including Christmas and New Year). The last time I had done six parkrundays in a row was… February to April 2017. I could bore you with more stats, but suffice to say that parkrunning regularly hasn’t really been a thing for a while. With this in mind, I proposed to Lolly that we take a week off this weekend – at least, from touring. Then this happened.

Farewell, sleep.

Thornbury was one of many parkruns on our to do list that is predominantly on grass, and thus something of a lottery with the buggies in the winter (it also suffers from being up the M5, and therefore on the ‘avoid due to awful summer traffic’ list too). Thankfully, it stayed pretty dry this week, so we didn’t have any last minute panics. It was actually our NENYD (by driving time), and so we had a relatively friendly 7:30 departure time.

We used the recommended Castle Court car park, which was a doddle to find with the postcode provided on the website. The car park has both long- and short-stay areas, which are free for 12 or 2 hours respectively. I recommend the 12 hour option – breakfast in The Swan is worth it. [Oops, spoiler.] We did notice a potential problem in the car park though – the arrow pointing to the parkrun went through a narrow kissing gate. Which is… less than ideal with a buggy. Thankfully we managed to get alternative directions around to the park (back to the high street, a couple of hundred yards along, and then cut down a lane into the park). Phew.

Our first observations of the park were that it was, well, undulating. And generally… uneven. This might sound like I’ve basically said the same thing twice, but when you run with a buggy you soon learn the only thing worse than running up a hill is running along a hill, when your buggy wants to turn (or roll) sideways down the slope.

After a toilet break (ample toilets are located right by the start/finish) we were greeted by the chap who’d given us directions, and then it was time for the run briefing. During the briefing, the RD paused when he heard murmurs after saying there were no buggies or dogs. He followed the eyes of the crowd toward us. He paused a little longer. “It’s not really a buggy friendly course, but we’ll see how you get along.” I’m sure Lolly was about as enthused as I was.

The parkrun commences

After the usual inaudible start (seriously parkrun event teams, buy megaphones), we were off. The first, oh, 100 metres(?) was on tarmac before a sharp left onto the grass around a football pitch. Thankfully this was pretty flat and well looked after, and with the ground firm enough at the moment, it was still decent running. (I feel like I’m describing a racecourse; “the going was good to firm”). We then went along past Thornbury Town’s main pitch before things got a little bit more rugged. Passing through into the next field was a little bumpy with the buggy: comparing Open Street Map’s satellite images with those from Google suggest that this might be a relatively recent conversion to playing fields.

Going around another two football pitches (presumably youth pitches, as they are a little smaller) gets you most of the way back to the start, but only for half the lap. The route doesn’t quite kiss before looping around another field. This is the part where things start to get a little lumpy. (I should preface this by clarifying that a lot of what I might describe as “lumpy”, “hilly”, “a climb” etc might not be considered much of anything without a buggy, but with a buggy, these things get magnified.) Part of what makes this course feel so tough with a buggy is the number of 90° corners on grass – each time you lose pretty much any momentum you’ve built up, and simply getting the sufficient grip on the grass to wrest the buggy around (even in the relatively dry conditions) can be tricky. I found this especially the case on the way out of the third field, when we had a right-angle bend, up the hill. with a slight bump up onto the path.

Once on that path though, you’d done the toughest part of the lap. There was a little climbing left, but at least it was on a tarmac path, and then we went all the way around the top field, which was mostly downhill, enjoyed a little dip back on the path and crossed the start line. Rinse and repeat three times, and you’re done.

Go around that field, then that field, and then that field, and finally that field. Then do it again. And again.

I’ll be honest – it’s not the most inspiring course I’ve ever run, especially when I’m visiting a week after doing Woolacombe Dunes. But parkrun isn’t about the course: if I’m totally honest, as predominately a trail runner these days, the majority of parkrun courses are a bit bland to me. What I think is far more important is the atmosphere. And while I related earlier that the RD had said it wasn’t a buggy friendly course, I can only half agree with him. The physical course is pretty unfriendly for buggies. In fact, as I went around one corner, I got so worried that my (pretty old now) buggy was going to fall apart that I started making plans for how I would finish if I had to abandon the buggy. (I mean, it wasn’t a complex plan to be fair – I would simply remove child from the buggy and walk with him to the finish.)

But the people; the marshals and fellow runners; they were extremely friendly. It might be partly because it’s a course that buggies are rarely seen at, but so many runners and volunteers took the time to cheer me on during the run, or step over at the end to congratulate me. I know it was the same for Lolly – she got a huge cheer when she finished, and received no end of encouragement throughout the run.

For me, that was the overwhelming takeaway from this run, the camaraderie. (Also, I avoided being lapped by about 6 seconds.) After the run, a group of us gathered together to try and recreate the 50 t-shirt photo.

Nice to see lots of 50 shirts on the course today, as well as plenty of other red tops too, to celebrate our 50th event! #loveparkrun #thornbury pic.twitter.com/hXl5kF3Z8I
— Thornbury parkrun (@Mundyparkrun) January 12, 2019

(We’re far right. You basically can’t see me because of Lolly. Ironically.)

Afterwards, the kids had a play in the playground, before I took both the buggies back to the car and then met Lolly and the kids at The Swan for breakfast. It was reasonably priced, and more to the point – HUGE!

The most important part of parkrun tourism: sampling breakfasts around the south west.

parkrun tourism: Gloucester City parkrun

by Lolly

Some people plan their parkrun tourism weeks or even months in advance. Some just wake up and decide where to go. The latter isn’t really practical for us, with our location and family, and even on the rare occasions we do plan it often needs to change. This weekend was looking particularly unpromising, with yellow warnings for rain and wind across Somerset, and not much better forecast in the helpful parts of Devon. Early Friday evening, the most likely option was me heading to a local repeat. Then we saw on Facebook that Danny from the With Me Now podcast was going to Gloucester City, and it seemed as good a reason as any to actually go somewhere.

Gloucester City parkrun, unsurprisingly located in the middle of Gloucester, is one of those events that really should have been higher on our target list. At only 1 hour 20 minutes away (in winter – it’s all M5 so summer would be awful) and buggy-friendly it hit the necessary ticks. And away from Somerset’s rain warning as well (we’ll ignore the ice warning for Gloucestershire). That just left the simple task of leaving the house by 7:15.

At 6:45 it looked like we weren’t going to go, as having actually persuaded ourselves to get out of bed, our daughter decided to stand her ground and refuse to go. With top-class negotiating skills, we got last-minute agreement to go. Speed prepping of people and stuff got us on the road by 7:25. Listening to the Moana and Frozen soundtracks on the way was a pretty small price to pay!

A combination of an accurate postcode and decent directions on the course page meant we had a pretty straight forward time finding where we were going. The parking is at Go Outdoors, opposite the park, and very sensibly there’s a sign to show which bit of the car park to use for parkrun. After layering up the kids (it was approximately 2 degrees) and getting the buggies set up, we crossed the road and headed into the park.

Gloucester City parkrun is fairly typical of most park parkruns, in that it’s a few laps around the edge, with bits added to make the distance right. The start was pretty close to where we’d entered the park, but the meeting point was at the bandstand. Or, you know, the usual theory of ‘head for the mass of hi-viz’. I was grateful to learn from one of the volunteers that there were toilets in the middle of the park (not the best but I’ve seen far worse). The timing meant that, for possibly the first time ever, I missed the first timers’ briefing but Ben was actually there. Miracles do happen.

The main run briefing was done from the bandstand. With a microphone so big tick there for actually being able to hear it. All the basics covered, everyone started heading to the start. But first, the big decision of starting layers. Last minute I opted for no hoodie but added sleeves. Definitely the right decision, even if it didn’t feel it on the walk over. At the start we counted 5 buggies (including our 2), which is pretty impressive given there were 89 runners.

And so finally, on paragraph 7, we were off. Ben got ahead of me almost instantly, as always, but with the early congestion the gap didn’t get too big. That and I was feeling pretty good and so made a decent start. The short lap at the start involved cutting a corner at one end of the park, following round the edge, and then cutting across the middle of the park to re-join the opposite edge. This is where I get confused describing courses, as the ‘lap’ back to the start was further along the path, but the point we re-joined was pretty much the lap point for all future reference. And now you’re confused too, I do realise.

By the end of the small lap, everyone had started to spread out a little, which could only be a good thing with my rusty steering skills. I was also starting to realise that what felt like pretty good pace was, in fact, pretty good pace. Back by the start I checked my watch and found I was on for a 30 minute parkrun. With a buggy. For the main 3 laps we followed the path all the way around the edge, instead of cutting the corner, and I found myself behind a couple of runners who were clearly aiming for 30 minutes themselves. Unfortunately I got a bit too close and they kindly let me through.

Where the short lap had split off, we carried on round the edge of the park, and the path got slightly wider, with a different surface. There were two slightly hairy moments when I dodged a recovering runner (who I think had just got back up from falling over) and then a dog walker, but thankfully I didn’t hit anyone or take any detours. The next challenge was a right-angled turn, naturally just as the first runners lapped me. Having somehow not wiped anyone out, I followed the path round, up a bump, and back into the main bit of park to start all over again.

Lap 2 was much the same, but I started to fall back a little from the 30 minute runners (as they were named in my head). There was also more being lapped (but amazingly still no knocking people over), and a fair amount of trying to explain to my daughter that I couldn’t really hear the questions she was asking.

My first thought at the start of lap 3 was how few runners had lapped me. The factors at play here were clearly a) me running fractionally faster, b) the smaller field size, and c) the out-and-back section to the finish at the end of the third lap. I was blissfully unaware of c, until my daughter asked if a runner she could see was doing the bit at the end. Which he was. In fairness, I was struggling at this stage. The pace on my watch was making it pretty clear that I could technically still get sub-30 if I pushed, but I knew that it just wasn’t going to happen.

On finishing the lap, the final stretch takes a path that goes right across the middle of the park, and then takes a sharp turn back along another path to the finish. That turn is on a marked grass section, but I clearly looked like crap and so the marshals took advantage of the quiet paths and let me stick to the tarmac, turning just after the usual point. Mad desperation to at least do as well as I could kicked in, and I somehow managed to speed up before the line.

My Strava map, because I realise my description may not be entirely clear…

My time was 30:20, and I’m insanely proud of that. It’s my buggy PB by over a minute, with a substantially bigger child than before. And to have actually been in with a shot at going sub-30 with the buggy is way beyond anything I thought I would achieve this year. Particularly in windy conditions, which made it much harder work.

Multi-lap park courses get bad-mouthed a lot, but I absolutely loved this one. The atmosphere was fantastic, with cheery supportive marshals all over the place, and a real community feel. After scanning in, we didn’t hang around at the park for too long as it started to rain. Instead we headed back to the car to put the buggies away, and then walked over to the GL1 leisure centre cafe.

It’s been far too long since we chatted with a core team in the cafe after a parkrun, and it was a great bunch of people to talk to. With topics including new years day doubles, barcode scanning, and how Bushy manage with so many people, it was great to just sit and chat. And, in Ben’s case, get asked to write the run report. As we were finally instructed to leave by our long-suffering daughter, we did take the opportunity to ask Danny for a selfie. I’m slightly jealous at how easily he got all 5 of us in the frame, given I struggle to fit 4 in.

Gloucester City parkrun turned out to be exactly what my week needed. Sure, it helped that I exceeded all my expectations in terms of pace. But the main things I’ll remember are the clever route, the absolutely fantastic volunteers, and the community feeling. And possibly the freezing cold wind…

parkrun tourism: Weymouth parkrun

by Ben

Weymouth parkrun has been running since August 2013, just marginally longer than our home run of Longrun Meadow. As with most in the South West region, it’s been on our radar to do for a while. The course description describes part of the course as being on the grass, and with the buggy(ies) that has put us off in the wet, wintry months.

Lolly and I travelled to the run separately; I had been working in the area on Friday and stayed in a local B&B the night before, while she was coming over from Taunton with the children. As a result, at 8:29 we had a conversation on WhatsApp:

Lolly: Awake yet?
Me: Yup.
Me: Where are you?
Lolly: [Picture of car in car park]
Me: Where’s that?
Me: I tried to park in the College Car Park that the website recommends, but it seems to be closed?
Lolly: Oh
Lolly: I parked in the country park car park

An encouraging start. I set up both buggies, and walked through the college car park to the start area for the parkrun. In the Country Park car park. Oh.

So for some clarity on the parking: you can park in the Country Park car park, which is in fact where the run started and finished for us: but you have to pay: 50p for one hour, working up to £6 for all day. The College car park was eventually opened, and is free for the duration of the run. There were also toilets in the car park, although only one of them was open, causing a long queue, even early on.

Smile!

After a fair bit of faffing (it turned out that I hadn’t changed into running shoes, so I had to go back to the car) we lined up for the start. As usual, I managed to miss the first timers briefing, but Lolly gave me a synopsis: keep left for the out-and-back section, turnaround at the stone pineapple. (Which, for the record, I never noticed.) Apparently, it was a very good first timers briefing: they had a big, obvious, sign showing where it was, and it covered everything that a first timer might possibly need to know.

As noted, the start/finish area was unusually located in a car park. In general parkrun tries to avoid areas with traffic: the course map doesn’t show the car park being used, so I can only assume that this is a variation due to wetter weather, possibly. Starting at the back of the pack with the buggies, we couldn’t hear the pre-run briefing, but there were various bursts of applause – presumably for landmark runs and thanking the volunteers.

I started gently – so gently that the tail walkers went past me! This just meant that I had no one either side of me, and I could easily dart across to the side to ease my way through some of the crowds while we were still in the wide car park area. Thankfully, even when we entered Lodmoor Country Park, the path stayed wide initially – easily allowing four people to run abreast. There were a few bollards to avoid, and although there were grass verges at the sides for sections, they tended to be slightly sloped, and not ideal for the buggy to put a wheel onto. I eased my way along through the field as well as I could, targeting the buggy that I could see ahead. Me, competitive? No…

Into the Country Park.

We started off with a clockwise lap of the park, around both a pitch and putt golf course and a field with a miniature railway in. Another third of the lap, and this time we split off to head up the out-and-back section. By this stage, I’d managed to find a bit more free space, and had got in front of the other buggy (there were four in total). The terrain up this section varied quite considerably: initially it was quite nice, if a little narrow in places: roughly three people wide. This opened out onto a rough clearing that had some – well – craters in it, which had to be navigated quite carefully with the buggy. The path after this was tarmac and very nice to run on.

I noticed as we approached the turnaround point that the other buggy was getting quite close behind me – thankfully things cleared up a little in front of me at this point, and tipping the buggy back onto its rear wheels, I navigated the tight turns, to the call of “quick buggy coming through” from the marshal. Heading back, I more or less gave up on passing people as the path got congested with the mid-pack going in both directions. We weaved past a few runners, but for the most part, I was content to sit and hold position.

Until, that is, I noticed the other buggy closing in behind me again. Sigh – can’t I just have a nice jog to the finish? (I mean, obviously I could have just let him pass me and not worried about it. Apparently.) After passing the tail walker coming the other way, I was able to move out and pass people with a bit more freedom, before we finally reached the park once more. I had expected that we would turn right and head straight back, but it seemed that we were still too short for that to work, and so we turned left for another longer loop of the park. I pressed on, though without going crazy, working myself into some clear space for the finish. (I tend to prefer more space when I’m finishing with the buggy – it stops any silly accidents.)

Past the miniature railway station.

The finish funnel was pretty congested, so as soon as I’d picked up our finish token, I ducked out of the funnel and went back to watch Lolly finishing, before scanning when it got a bit quieter.

Overall, I enjoyed the course – it is nicely varied. I would say that it is pretty much completely flat, though there may be a very slight climb up to the turnaround point. But Strava reckons it was 22 feet, so, maybe not. Looking at the volunteer roster, it looks quite a labour intensive run; eight marshals, a lead bike, two funnel managers, two on finish tokens. There was certainly never any trouble finding where to go on the course!

Afterwards, it looked like a lot of the parkrunners were going back to the Lodmoor pub, a Brewers Fayre attached to the Premier Inn right by the start/finish. (There’s also another Premier Inn by the turnaround point, so both are pretty convenient for the run.) We opted to drive into town to visit Wetherspoons for a cheaper breakfast, before returning to the Country Park car park to visit Weymouth Sea Life Centre.

parkrun tourism: Shepton Mallet parkrun

by Ben

At around 9 am on New Year’s Day, we had no plans to parkrun. Long ago, we’d been talking about doing a double, but neither of us were in any state of running fitness to complete 10k in one day. We had discussed the possibility of going down to Killerton for Lolly to repeat at 9:30, but we never really got our stuff together in time for it.

At around 9:05; I mentioned the possibility that maybe we could both run at Shepton Mallet – a buggy each. Shepton Mallet parkrun is about a 55-minute drive from us and was starting at 10:30. Making the decision, more or less out of the blue, to go just 85 minutes beforehand probably wouldn’t be too unreasonable for most parkrun tourists. But when you have to pack not only yourselves and your running gear, but also two small children, two buggies, changing gear for the youngest of the two, and all the other ancillary rubbish that goes with small children, it really was a crazy decision.

But then, that’s probably what we do best.

Somehow, we managed to get ready in pretty much 15 minutes, thanks mostly to the fact that our 4-year-old daughter decided she would put clothes on – if that decision had gone the other way, we might still now be trying to wheedle with her.

As we got closer to Shepton Mallet… it started to rain. Just another thing to make the experience a little bit more stressful! We arrived to pretty light rain, in which I had to try and remember how the rain-covers for each of the two buggies worked (differently, of course!) By the time I had got both children into their buggies, the eldest had decided that she would like to go home now, thank you. Well, of course she did!

We hadn’t really done much research on the course: we knew it was three-laps, allowed buggies, and was mostly tarmac. We rushed down to the start, and more or less only just got in place at the back of the crowd in time to begin…

A blurry two buggy start.

… Which turned out to be less than ideal. The course started by winding its way along a narrow path, including a corkscrew-esque uphill hairpin bend. Throughout most of the course, it is run on narrow tarmac paths with grass either side. Running with a buggy, this was a bit of a nightmare when starting from the back – I got out onto the grass early to pass a few people, but it was seriously slippy. If I have one recommendation for this parkrun, it is to make sure you start according to pace!

Still, after continuing up the hill a bit further, we went along a short (10 metres maybe?) muddy, tree-root riddled section, and then were on a nice wide path. Or at least, it seemed nice and wide, until someone yelled: “lead runners coming!” So, the bit where I said I hadn’t done much research on the course? Yeah, hadn’t realised that there was a really long out-and-back. So now, while trying to pass people, I’m also having to try and stay out of the way of the quicker runners coming back the other way.

Out-and-back stint navigated, we dropped back down the hill, quite sharply, and ran next to the pond for a few metres. It’s probably pretty scenic most of the time, but by now it as pretty much torrential rain. My daughter kept trying to talk to me through the rain-cover, but I frankly couldn’t hear a thing, so I just kept saying “Yeah” from time to time, and crossed my fingers that I wasn’t agreeing to anything too expensive. Not that I could actually cross my fingers, as they were numb with the wet and cold.

Another climb followed, up towards the car park we’d arrived from, before the course dropped back down to the start/finish area, past a little shelter full of huddled, cheering spectators. And repeat. And repeat.

As usual, I was able to make better headway through the field as it spread out, but the out-and-back section was even trickier second time around, as I was trying to pass people, while being wary of runners coming the other way (some of whom were trying to pass each other) and also paying attention to those lead runners who were by now lapping me. So just the potential for three abreast each way. On a path wide enough for… well, three.

Having started as the fourth of five buggies (Lolly being the fifth), I somehow made it through the finish as the first buggy, though it involved something of a quick final half a lap! I was slightly surprised halfway through the second lap to hear a cheer of “Go on Ben.” After checking a couple of times that I wasn’t wearing anything with my name on it, I paid more attention and realised that it was Joanne, who I know from Twitter, and I’d met before at her home event of Kingsway.

The finish funnel was pretty narrow – I’m not sure that a double buggy would have fit down it at all, and I had to slow quite dramatically and basically walk over the finish line – but this might have been forced on them by the wet conditions making the grass so muddy. Despite the weather, the support from the marshals and other supporters around the course was superb. After finishing, we hung around just ahead of the finish funnel to wait for Lolly – though I did get told off by a passer-by for asking my daughter if she “could see Mummy yet” – less of the “yet” apparently!

This photo really doesn’t convey quite how soaked through we were…

Due to the weather, no one was hanging around for a chat, and we proved no exception: after getting a photo by the pond, we got back to the car as quickly as we could.

I always find parkrun on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day to be a little bit special. The atmosphere is different to a normal parkrun – there seems to be an even greater sense of community than usual. (And there is usually quite a lot anyway.) I think it probably comes from the fact that we all feel a little loony for being out running when most other people (even more than usual) are doing anything but.

Now… where’s next?

Training Diary – w/c 11th September

by Lolly

Seeing as Ben is injured at the moment (again), he hasn’t been writing his usual training log updates. So I thought I would step in instead.

My ‘training’ situation is obviously a little different at the moment, as I’m looking to re-build all-round strength as well as get fitness back. In theory I’ve been working towards being able to run the Taunton 10k, but energy levels and split priorities mean that the base work just hasn’t been there.

In the interests of transparency, I should also point out that this was pretty much the best a week of exercise has ever gone for me.

Monday – Ballet Fit Class
Regular class for me that has been great for building strength. For this week we particularly focused on leg extensions (which I’m, uh, not great at) and back extensions (which, surprisingly, I’m not terrible at).

Tuesday – 1.6 mile run & Pole Class
So there will be a few raised eyebrows at this, but I’ve been doing a beginners’ Pole course for the last few weeks. I’ve never known anything to work every part of your body quite like this. I was pretty wiped and so Ben suggested I should head over early and go for a short run before hand to help me wake up. The wind and the rain (and probably the running) certainly did help and meant that I was at least semi-awake for the class. Notable bits of the class were learning single-climb squats (which I very much felt after) and slipping slightly while trying out a spin (which left a lovely line of bruises down my leg).

Wednesday – Rest Day
By which I mean I left my sofa for about 2 hours total. Considering I have a 5 month old at home with me, this is quite a feat I feel.

Thursday – 1.7 mile buggy run
Or, as I called it on Strava, “Tired buggy run”. Tired was definitely the theme for the week (or year). As I mentioned in my post about buggy running, I’m finding it pretty hard going. But it’s absolutely worth it for being able to get a bit of a run in.

Friday – Rest Day

Saturday – parkrun (2017 best)
We’d talked earlier in the week about me possibly doing parkrun somewhere we could then go out for the day, but when it got to Friday evening we were way too tired (there’s that word again). Waking up on Saturday I had a little strop about not wanting to trudge round Longrun Meadow, but got over myself and decided to go anyway. As I went to get my shoes out I realised it had rained during the week, so put my trail shoes on and crossed absolutely everything that there might be good puddles.
I was not disappointed. Barely a minute into the run I saw runners part in front of me, and a smile hit my face as I splashed right through the middle. Congestion is really not a thing when you’re surrounded by dodgers. Regular puddles gave me lots of little targets to aim for, which really helped with keeping going. I ran the whole thing, and got my fastest parkrun time since before I got pregnant. I really really do love puddles.

Photo Credit: Kevin Dunn

Sunday – Rest Day

I’d hoped to get out for a few miles, but for various reasons it just didn’t happen.

So there you have it, a snapshot of my week. Well, the bits that involve exercise at least. The balance of 2 classes and 3 runs is what I’m aiming for (albeit slightly more targeted runs), and so hopefully there will be more weeks like this in the near future.

Buggy beginnings

by Lolly

One of the things I’ve been asked most since I started back at parkrun is when we’ll be buggy-parkrunning with our son. And every time I’ve given the answer that buggy running is not recommended until the baby is 6 months old.

The observant among you will have spotted that he is not going to be 6 months old for another few weeks, and yet here I am writing about buggies. So let me explain.

Last week, I really wanted to go for a run. My legs just felt in need of a stretch out. It had been over a week since my last outing and, with the way our schedule was looking, it could easily be over a week until I would next get the chance. Ben suggested going out with the buggy while our daughter was at nursery, and although I was initially reluctant it made sense.

Every single health professional that has ever seen our son has commented on how strong he is. Being able to support his own head is really not an issue. We already own a running buggy (ok, we have 2) and so it’s not like I’d be running with him in a lightweight stroller. My pace and distance are hardly record-breaking at the moment, so that would make for a gentle starting point. And I was in complete control of the terrain (aka boring wide paths near my house).

And so it was that I strapped him in and tentatively set off. I’m not going to lie, it was tough. My core and shoulders were still aching from an exercise class earlier in the week, and it had been a really really long time since I last ran with a buggy. But in a way that made it mentally easier. It was always going to be tricky, and so I just had to do what I could.

Any excuse to stop and rest…

I wasn’t sure how our son would react, seeing as he’s hardly been in a pushchair at all, but, true to form, he happily fell asleep. Result! Despite finding it hard going (and going uphill on a bridge near impossible) I enjoyed it. And running downhill with a buggy is great for stride length and pattern.

Like starting anything, it’s great to have something to build on. I went out again this week and got slightly further, and my intention is to make it a regular event to build up my strength. While I certainly wouldn’t consider anything like Mount Edgcumbe with a baby this young (although I’m sure Ben would consider the lighter buggy), a reasonably-surfaced parkrun should be fine in the near future.

For now, though, I’m just enjoying the freedom feeling of being able to get out the house and run.