Category: Running

So last week I was still a bit stiff, and paranoid about making my back/hip worse, so I offered to help out at parkrun so that I could not change my mind in the morning and run. Their roster was full, but I offered to take photos so they added me to the list, and Andy lent me his fancy camera.

This was very hard to take with my phone in one hand and big camera in the other!

My dad was running so he picked me up and I had a little chat with some of the team before heading to the first spot. Panshanger is one big loop and last time I marshalled on the first point, I was back at the start before the first runner finished, so I thought that starting there would be good, and then once the tail runner went past I could walk back to the finish and get more photos of runners finishing.

The bluebells were looking gorgeous, and I took a few pictures of them too. I was trying to cheer runners as they headed past, and I spotted a few people I knew, but it was hard to squint through the viewfinder the whole time. I tried to track runners (that red top is at the back of the picture, wait ’til he is at the front then take another) but it didn’t always work. It was fairly gloomy and the flash kept going off so sometimes it needed to charge between pictures too.

Some of our club were running (and having training afterwards to process the results ahead of the new parkrun in May) and I managed to give them a cheer on their way past.

One local club (Ware Joggers) were holding a pacing event, but I had forgotten that and kept wondering if there was a virtual race going on as I saw a few of them running past with  numbers on their tops, and only realised after that they all had those plastic yellow vest things over their tops.

One of the pacers in the yellow vest.

After the tail runner went past, I took my time walking back, taking more pictures of the bluebells and scenery.

I love this view- the snake of runners heading up the hill and along the top.

The same club were also giving out free cake to promote their races (you can look at the races here. The Ware 10 miler is one of my favourite races, and even though it’s now in the summer instead of the autumn I am still signed up as it’s a very pretty route, their marshals are fab, and they have tea and cake for £1 at the end and it is always so good).

By the time I got back to the start the fastest runners had already finished, so I walked down the hill to take pictures of people in their final stretch.

I tried to show how steep that hill is, but it never comes out well in photos! At the end of a fast parkrun, it is tough!

Even from the bottom of the hill pointing up! That’s my dad in the blue, heading up the hill.

I saw one of my friends from our club at this point, and it surprised me as I didn’t notice her at the start- however when I looked back through the photos I did snap one of her!

My dad walked down to me once his chip was scanned, and we cheered on some of the runners, but it was getting a bit cold so we walked back up to the finish and I took my final few.

I got an action shot of someone going through the finish funnel!

The coffee van was still doing a great trade, to go with the free cake of course! Although I didn’t have any as we have Andy’s birthday cake at home which will last us a while!

I really enjoyed taking pictures though- it was hard to cheer as I had to keep still when taking the pictures, but when I have been to other parkruns it’s always nice to see a photo (especially if I have both feet off the ground!) so hopefully some of the runners will have a look through and find a good picture. It was so cold though! I wished I had brought gloves with me. This weather is madness! Last year I did so many of my long runs in a vest, whereas this year I have only braved a t-shirt a handful of times.

I was cautious about getting stiff, and I had booked a haircut for the afternoon, so I parked further away so I had a good mile walk each way, and we had a walk (which was freezing!) before dinner.

So, onto running:

On Sunday I had a very slow run around the fields- I got a bit lost at one point so it ended up being 5 miles, but 5 enjoyable miles, and all was fine. In the afternoon we had a nice walk through a park in Hemel after popping in to see Andy’s brother.

I had a rest day on Monday (a couple of walks), and then a club run on Tuesday. I had picked up something heavy at work and my back was feeling a little bit stiff, so I was a bit worried during the run that I would have to stop and walk back, but it was fine and I was glad to get out there. Lots of stretching when I got home. A rest day on Wednesday (a walk after work), and a run on my own on Thursday (4 miles), another rest day on Friday, and then parkrun this morning. It seems to be OK- I have been using the reusable ice packs after a run too, which does seem to help.

Do you ever buy photos of you at running events? I have never bought a picture as they are so expensive, plus they tend to be awful pictures! I think I might have been tempted to buy one of the Brighton marathon, but Andy took some good ones so I didn’t feel the need to look at them.

I was having a bit of a sort out this week and came across two bits of paper that made me feel so nostalgic! One- the couch to 5k running plan that I followed back in 2008.

It was so much easier than other plans that I had looked at, as so many of them seemed to be complicated run 2 mins, walk 1, run 3, walk 2… hard to remember when you are out. This was so easy to remember the timings. You repeated each run three times per week, and I remember the first one was tough and I didn’t think I would manage it, the second was OK, and the third I used to spend worrying about the jump the following week! But magically I managed it.

Following on from the 5K I started to increase the length of my weekend run, and these are my notes of what I did, and the miles in brackets as by then I had discovered mapometer!

After my club run on Tuesday evening I had a rest day on Wednesday- we went to The Waffle House for lunch and had a lovely walk around the lake after, even seeing lots of ducklings.

I then finished my reports (hooray!) and had another walk later on to top up my steps. In the evening we watched a film and my back started to feel a bit stiff, and then I had an awful night of just not being able to get comfortable at all. In the morning I could not put weight on my left leg as the pain going down from my back to the back of my leg was so sore. So I had a rather miserable day. Luckily Andy was working from home so he could help pass things to me- I managed to hobble to a chair in the living room, and after googling some stretches I had a go at doing some to ease the pain.

A few weeks ago I had bought three of these ice packs from Amazon, and luckily they were in the freezer, so I put them on every 90 minutes or so which does seem to help a lot.

I fell asleep on the sofa after finally finding a comfortable position, and then after that I felt a little better- we had a very slow walk so I could have some fresh air, and then I had a bath which also helped a lot. Andy found some of my old super strong painkillers from when I had my cyst removed, so I put them next to my bed in case it was bad again in the night, but it was much better. It’s so weird- no idea what caused it, and none of the stretches seemed to immediately help, but it seems to go as quickly as it comes. On Friday I was able to walk fine- we walked around town as I had to pick up a present for my mum. I did a lot of sorting out of clothes, baking (I made Laura’s banana bread which is really delicious), a 30 minute yoga video and then about a 35 minute walk before dinner.

I am being very sensible though. My dad was going to parkrun today, and of course I wanted to go with him, especially after all the stuff going on with it this week. But I thought that I should have one more day off running, just to be on the safe side, so I messaged the RD asking if I could do anything like take photos- that way I am still going along but I wouldn’t be able to change my mind and run in the morning. Sensible! Andy even lent me his fancy camera and I took so many photos, but that’s for another post!

So, onto parkrun. It was even talked about on Radio 4 this week, and seems to have been on all the TV channels. Back in January I heard on Marathon Talk that a council were wanting to charge the parkrun team (or runners- it seems they are changing their minds a bit as to how to do it) to run in their park, and I signed the petition, hoping that they would vote the other way. Well, in case you didn’t hear, they voted to push on with their charge.

To me, it just does not make any sense. First of all, the council won’t make money because what will actually happen is that the parkrun will be cancelled or moved elsewhere. I do understand that parks have to pay for the upkeep of their paths, and I know that budgets are being squeezed, but we all pay our council tax. Will they charge dog walkers for the cost of emptying the dog poo bins? Or parents the cost of a health and safety check for the swings? I liked this take on the story- particularly the coin operated swings! The council’s argument seems to be that they charge other organised sports, such as football teams, for using the park (although I just heard a bit of this week’s MT and apparently they are not going to charge the junior event that takes place each Sunday, even though it is the same organisation…). But that is different; if you book a football pitch, no-one else can play on it at the same time. They have more obvious items to maintain such as goals, nets, corner flags, lines being painted etc. Players will pay subs to their team, which will then go towards this sort of thing too. Each parkrun event brings their own signs, finish funnel and so on, so there is no upkeep needed, and at every run briefing I have been to we have been reminded to be considerate of other park users and give way to others.

This blog post sums up a lot of what is great about parkrun (and it was written before this happened), and this morning I read Chrissie Wellington’s blog which I also very much agree with.

St Albans parkrun only started in 2012, a long time after I had started running, and it took my dad to persuade me to come along to it as I didn’t see the point- I could just run a 5k on my own on the pavements around home. But I went, and loved it, and have not looked back. Our club now use it as a mile (5K?) stone for the new runners- they do their beginner runner course and then “graduate” by running a 5k parkrun, and other running clubs do the same. I think I would have loved to attend this sort of event instead of a race for my first official 5k as it is so much more friendly, and less scary than an actual race. But the point of it to me is the community. The fact that volunteering is huge part of it- yes you can just run if you want to, but when I first started they asked for everyone to volunteer 3 times a year. Not much, but so good to be putting something back. There is a lady at Panshanger who volunteers most weeks. She does not run, and no-one in her family does. But since retiring she wanted to be involved in the park (it was only recently opened to the public and the Friends of Panshanger had a lot to do with helping start the parkrun), and so she is one of the most familiar faces you will see there. If parkrun wasn’t there, she could go to the park at the same time each week, but it would not be the same. She would not have met the people she knows now (she was given a special award at the one year birthday as she has volunteered so much and is such a huge part of the team).

Volunteering also helps people to develop a huge range of skills. We have had a few teenagers do the volunteering as part of their D of E award. Doing the new runners briefing has helped me to start to get over my fear of public speaking- the first time I did it my knees were shaking and I wished I could sit down, but I have done that role a few times now and each time it gets a bit easier.

It is such a feeling of community, and this morning even though I wasn’t running, I chatted to some of my club mates, some of the event team, cheered on runners.

It also gives a boost to the local area. On my walk from my first photographing post to the start, I saw quite a few dog walkers carrying cups from the coffee van- the van is only there because of parkrun and there is always a huge queue- he must do a roaring trade but he’s only there while the parkrun is going on. So yes one path is a bit congested for about five minutes (after the first bit everyone spreads out) but anyone else in the park can benefit from the coffee van. The car park at Panshanger is only small, so unless you are volunteering you are asked to park elsewhere (they have a marshal on the gate to check) so that dog walkers and other park users have priority. It is a considerate event, it promotes other local events; today there was free cake from a running club promoting their 10k and 10 mile race, they have sold calendars and had a photography competition to raise funds for the upkeep of the park, they promoted a free family Easter egg hunt- the list goes on.

I was glad to see so many of the parkruns posting on facebook about how their events will remain free, as the worst thing that could happen is that other councils follow suit, but it seems that most local councils are aware of the benefits that parkrun brings, and so continue to support them.

What was your take on the parkrun fiasco this week? 

For anyone interested in the benefits, they have created a temporary website, loveparkrun.com, showcasing their brilliant work.

And if you want a little giggle, check out these t-shirts.

So my dad has been quite keen on doing a bit of parkrun tourism (visiting other parkruns). We have our two local ones (St Albans and Panshanger, although we favour Panshanger now and rarely do St Albans) which we visit together, and have all been to Gadebridge in Hemel separately. He has been to a few different ones to me; Wimbledon Common, Cannon Hill in Birmingham- both when he was at the tennis tournaments, and Lloyd parkrun in Croydon, which he and my brother visited before a football match a few weeks ago, whereas I have been to Hove Promenade and Crissy Field (San Fran). For the last few weeks they have either had to head off soon after, or I have been volunteering so we have been tied to Panshanger. This week we realised that as I was not volunteering and they had no plans we could go somewhere new.

We spent a while looking at the local ones, but Dad was not keen on the idea of 3 lap courses- so many of them are, and we were losing hope. Then we came across Aldenham County Park parkrun, which is only 2 laps, so decided to give it a go.

I picked them up at 8.15 to give us plenty of time to get there- we arrived at about 8.45 so plenty of time. I am awful at directions so had spent a while on their course page, and on google maps, trying to work out where it was (it didn’t help that I went to uni at the Aldenham Herts campus, which it turns out is not the same place as the country park!), but the postcode on their course page took us right there so there was no need for me to worry. As we drove up the little road to the car park, some sheep wandered across the road (no lambs though). You do have to pay to park (well, you pay on exit) and it’s normally £4.50 (most people would visit for the day, there’s a little farm, nice walks, a Winnie the Pooh trail…) but now if you show your parkrun barcode it’s only £2, which isn’t so bad.  It turned out that I parked right by the finish straight, so I think next time I would park a bit further back. When we got there, we were the first runners to arrive!

(The view of the final turn from the boot of my car- after we had finished).

It was a bit chilly at the start- I had worn a long sleeved top under my t-shirt and had thought I might be warm, but that was fine for me in the end.

The lady that did the new runners briefing was so lovely and welcoming- she asked where the tourists were from and wrote our home parkruns down, and there was one first timer so she made him feel very welcome too.

From their facebook page- I think we are cheering the new parkrunner here!

Almost as soon as that was finished, she then gave the main briefing (again giving everyone a reminder about the car park token system), mentioned that there was a pacer who could run between 25 and 30 minutes (one man took him up on his offer), welcomed the new runner and tourists (and mentioned each of our home parkruns which was a lovely touch), thanked the volunteers and then we were off! There were only 25 runners so I was conscious of not going off too fast. I ended up chatting to a lady who had come from Milton Keynes, and that was perfect as the chatting speed meant I was keeping a steady pace.

The route itself is lovely- it was two laps, the first lap being slightly longer, going around the lake and then through some woods. They had warned that it was muddy (and I had worn my newer trainers, not my trail shoes) but the first section of each lap was fine- mainly concrete type paths with a thin covering of mud and a few puddles to skirt around. But then the second section of each lap through the woods was far muddier- I took plenty of detours to avoid the biggest muddy sections. I really enjoyed it though- as there were so few runners at times I had the woods to myself. I saw bluebells, plenty of ducks and coots, a few dog walkers and just generally enjoyed the change of scenery. At one point I noticed an amazing carving of some acorns in a fallen tree trunk- it would be a lovely place for a walk too. The marshals were lovely- one was indicating which way you went towards the end of each lap (right for the first lap left for the second). I was just behind the first timer, and she told him “remember, you don’t have to run the whole way, walk if you want”.  On my second lap she congratulated me on my 50 parkruns (I was wearing my 50 t-shirt)- really friendly.

From their facebook page- the half way point (ish)

The finish was back into the car park, and I could see everyone standing by the finish line which is always motivating. I did get told off for being so clean! I think I had one splat of mud on one leg, whereas my dad had mud all the way up his trousers! I really was avoiding the mud because of my newish trainers!

I ended up as number 16, 4th lady and second in my age category, with a time of 30.41. It’s a good flat course though so once I am feeling more confident I am sure I will be back to try and get myself a nice pb. One thing I loved was looking through the photos on their facebook page- pretty much every runner was smiling.

Then we headed home and Mum made us all pancakes- a pretty good start to the weekend!

I had to be careful not to run any ducks over on my way out of the car park!

It did get me thinking though, why some parkruns have such low attendance. This parkrun is 12 miles from where I live, so not at all far. Our two closest, St Albans and Panshanger are regularly getting 200- 300 + runners each week, and St Albans particularly is so congested now which puts me off, whereas close by there is Barclay (in Hoddeston) which seems to have 40ish. Gadebridge in Hemel seems to get around 100. Does the car park charge put people off? But then in St Albans the parking charges start at 9.30 so unless you are very speedy now you are unlikely to get your chip scanned in time. Do people just tend to go to their local one and not explore other options? Do people prefer ones based in towns as opposed to out in the country somewhere? It would be hard to get to Aldenham by public transport I think, and it does seem a bit far from the nearby towns to be able to run there and back. Do ones linked to local running clubs do better? On the results the only clubs were from tourists (this week), and I wonder if having that base of runners helps with word of mouth, volunteers and generally upping runner numbers.

On a side note, a while back (using some EarthMiles points as a discount) I bought myself a Stnky bag for my sports kit- I have used it a couple of times- it unzips on both sides, one side has a net (I use that for my trainers) and the other side is for clothes- it keeps all the smelly kit confined, plus the bag can go in the wash after. (I got the normal sized one and it is fine for my trainers plus running kit, but they do a bigger size too). Worth a look if you travel to races or training (and worth a look on Earthmiles as the discount code will save you a bit too).

The bag filled with my kit today before I put it all into the wash.

How many parkrunners do you tend to get at your local one? Do you prefer the smaller or larger events? How many ones have you visited?