Tag Archives: Thornbury parkrun

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.

Everything changes.

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.

(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.