Here comes the sun!!

There's a sunny smile!

Three days in Scotland and it rained constantly, back down to Wales and the drizzle was unending. And then on New Year's Day, lo and behold, the sun emerged. We trekked up to Ormskirk to do the local parkrun to find nearly 500 other runners blinking in the unfamiliar bright light. We're not used to running with such a large group, however there were more big parkruns  to come in January as you will see.

Oh my gluteus maximus!

Next up was Birkenhead parkrun, this is in a fine and notable park which was designed by Joseph Caxton and became the inspiration for Central Park in New York (no parkrun there as yet!) This snap is of the Roman Boathouse on a nice sunny day, not how it was for us unfortunately - during our run it was cold and bleak! Vicky and I were accompanied by a very determined Linda McK whom we hope will do more park running in future. (And we were joined by over 500 other runners!)

Nice gates!

Some rather fine park gates to admire at Princes parkrun in Liverpool. This was another gloomy day - lots of runners though, another 500 plus in this one but the park seemed to cope. This was another park designed by Joseph Paxton who also happened to be the head gardener at Chatsworth House while he was designing all these grand city parks.

These gates were better than they look!

Even grimmer was the weather at Huddersfield parkrun and even more runners braved the gloom 729 of them! Despite my best efforts the photo we had taken of us by the park gates was of poor quality. Is this  a reason for returning in the summer? Don't count on it. Still it was a nice gallop round a fine park.

So there you are, nearly 2200 runners at just four chilly events. Safety in numbers perhaps, but we actually prefer the smaller low key parkruns.