Sunday 29 March 2015

Dartford parkrun 36 - the day of the cape

There was a huge buzz in parkrunworld this weekend as parkrun UK inaugurated the first ever member of the 500 club at Frimley Lodge parkrun. I was really pleased to see the much-joked-about '500 cape' actually made an appearance. The question I (and probably most others) was keen to have answered was 'what colour will the t-shirt be?' - The answer is now known and it is 'blue'. In a strange coincidence, the shade of blue is almost identical to the blue top I wore on my visit there.

the incline trail section [photo: brian page]

For us over at Dartford parkrun it was business as usual as we got on with event 36. The weather forecast had warned of some gusty wind conditions. As it turned out, it was a little blowy but nowhere near as bad as I had imagined. The early morning set-up was done and dusted just before 8.30am which left plenty of time to do other bits and pieces before parkrun o'clock.

After the excitement of the previous week's chase-the-pacer event, I felt a little lost and didn't really know what to do with my run. I toyed with the idea of taking Matilda around in the running buggy, but she hadn't been feeling great and wasn't really up for being swung and bumped around the course.

passing the start-finish at the end of lap one [photo: richey estcourt]

In the end, I stopped thinking about it and just ran. To be honest it wasn't my most enjoyable of runs - I can't put my finger on it but somehow I just didn't feel right. Just over 20 minutes later I came through the finish line and after a bit of a breather I took over as the second barcode scannerer. I was having trouble hearing the beeps amongst all of the post-run chit-chat but a while later it was all done and I headed off the collect any signage that hadn't already been collected.

The results had been processed by the time I made it into the clubhouse for the post-run refreshments and all that was left to do was try to make a decision as to where we were all going to go the following Saturday when Dartford parkrun had to be cancelled to make way for an Easter Egg hunt (I appreciate that there's a certain amount of irony in that). 

spring has sprung [photo: 7t]

We managed to make a decision so I am really looking forward to going on tour with my Dartford parkrun running buddies and we're also lining up a nice brunch somewhere afterwards which should be fun. So, after a long break, I will finally be able to write a blog about a new (to me) parkrun venue which I haven't done since I travelled over to Panshanger parkrun back in November 2014. I've been feeling a little twitchy lately and am really eager to get out on the road every now and then so this has come at a very good time!


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