A bit more running!

A church, a cathedral? No it's the crem!

We drove past Manchester's Southern Cemetary on Sunday. The schoolboy joke that I remember was that this is the dead centre of Manchester! The Crematorium was looking particularly impressive - this is a springtime photo which is the best time to look at it. This was the second crematorium in the country and was designed by Edward Salmons and A Steinthal (the first was built in Woking in 1885 where the first successful cremation was carried out on the body of a horse).

So, to the running,  we were on our way to and from the Stretford Parkrun. Pouring with rain it was! But it's a nice flat course and Vicky got her Parkrun all time PB of 31.26 - maybe Skip was anxious to get back out of the rain, but he pulled her through. I equalled this year's best of 19.51 so we were all happy. And a bottle of wine was thrust into my hand at the Cyrn Y Brain fell race the following day at the Horseshoe Pass. Harriers were there in force (well three of us were) and a certain symmetry applied as Vic and Emma won the over 55 prizes and I won the over 65 prize; the link was that in each case we beat the over 50's and over 60's! And here's technology for you - a Strava map of my progress round the park - the red line represents two circuits starting with the green circle, round the oval running track on the bottom right and two plus round the park finishing at the chequered flag (circle!)

The green shoes go quite nicely don't they.

And here's me in a red vest - I bet that's got you fooled! It was the first fixture of the Borders League series and, seeing as Denbigh do not participate in this seven race winter series, I run for Prestatyn. I haven't done any Borders League races for about 5 years but it was good to be back - apart from the fact that I just couldn't quite catch George (also of Prestatyn) who managed to win the V65 age group. I was gaining on him all the time but was a measly 5 seconds short at the end - another 100 metres and I'd have got him (I think!) You can see Autumn is drawing in as the leaves come tumbling down - a bit slippy in places.

100 up!

Not Phoenix Park in Dublin, a bit less glamorous but a nice little hilly park nonetheless. This one is in Runcorn in an area of land where nature has taken over from the post industrial mess. The Parkrun goes twice round the park and along the towpath of the Bridgwater Canal and as you can see this was my 100th so I should be getting a t-shirt at some point. Quite pleased with 4th place in 21.29.

Nice party venue!

The parkrun website instructed me to park in the grounds of Norton Priory Museum which I did being a good citizen. It was a wet morning and I parked up and jogged down to the start. On the way back the rain was pelting down so I jumped in the car and was off, barely taking a glance at the entrance to the museum. But return we must as this is home to what are described as the most extensive monastic remains in Northern Britain, not to mention the extensive 18th century walled garden. All of this history on Merseyside - who'd have thought it? This picture is of the Norman undercroft of the medieval abbey. It seems that this site was chosen as it was at the location where people regularly crossed the River Mersey (before the Runcorn bridge was built of course.) And I bet they charged a toll!!

Ellesmere or Ellesmere Port?

Smiling but it's only 800 metres into the race!

Here's a cheerful photo from Sunday's Ellesmere 10K. We did this race 16 years ago (on a slightly tougher course!) I still have my result from all those years ago - I was 91st out of 243 in 42.18, this year I was 56th out of 711 in a time of 42.19! So having all this data to hand I decided (as is my wont)) to have a closer look at the statistics - this year 5% of the field finished the race in less than 40 minutes whereas in 2001 20% of runners were under 40 minutes. What does this all mean? Yes I was 1 second slower so I'm reasonably happy with my run but does the sub 40 data show that standards are declining? Or is it just that there are more runners and races nowadays? I looked some time ago at results for a long standing 10K at Rochdale - in 1990 over half the field finished in under 40 minutes (110 from 183 finishers) - in contrast this year on the same course, only 34 of 280 finishers were below 40 minutes. Well you'll just have to draw your own conclusions!

Thomas Telford lived in Ellesmere for a while. He was responsible for building the Ellesmere canal which was intended to link Ellesmere with the Rivers Severn and Mersey. At the Mersey junction there was a town that went by the name of Netherpool which was going to be the port that was planned to handle the increased traffic coming up the canal. So, in the spirit of things the town was renamed Ellesmere Port! Unfortunately the canal was never fully completed. Not one of Telford's greater achievements!