At Loggerheads

Catch me if you can!

This me being chased by Dan and Paul at Joe Cooper's Loggerheads Trail 5K race. They tried hard but couldn't catch me, I finished in 5th place on a fine morning through the woods. On finishing my race (one lap) I ended up doing an extra lap as Joe asked me to go around again, catch up the last 10K runner (2 laps) and tell the marshals they could go home. Vicky was up for the two lapper and was well clear of the tail runner, her technique of going straight through puddles worked very well.

It's quicker down the middle.

 I did manage to get in a Parkrun the following weekend in Nottingham. Took this one steady - there was an absolute gale wafting down the long straight at the Forest Recreation Ground in Nottingham and I was hoping for a good time in the Vale of Clwyd 5K in the morning. I was wearing tracksters, a long sleeve vest, a short sleeve vest and two windproof tops and still wasn’t overheating (that’s me in green towards the left of the photo). But blow me down a snowstorm meant that the following day’s race was cancelled and I could have had a blast here! This was a friendly run in not the most salubrious part of Nottingham and I was particularly impressed at the vast number of Notts Women Runners in their purple tops - all with big smiles on their faces. I only found out after the event that this park has for many years hosted the Nottingham Goose Fair, one of the best known travelling funfairs in Europe. 

Brrrr!

The XC Season is Over - Hooray!

Underground Parkrun perhaps?

This is the second Parkrun run we've done at a venue that used to be a colliery, in this case it was the Rising Sun Colliery at Wallsend, near Newcastle on Tyne. One of the world's largest deep coalmines, it contained over 60 miles of tunnels and coal was hauled to the surface by pit ponies. Now it's a wildlife park home to various species of plant and birdlife, oh and a very popular Parkrun. Not much sun rising on this dark wet February morning though but we did scoot round quite rapidly to the finish to get out of the wind. I topped the age graders with 80.23% and a time of 21:05 - I thought I'd gone very well and the organiser told me that the course was actually "a wee bit over distance". Vicky  rushed round in 36:21 and promptly got changed into her work gear for a 10 am start at the office!

Certainly the muddiest cross country season I've ever encountered and we both completed all five fixtures earning first male V65 first and third lady V60 awards. I was also surprised to get a medal for our club being second team in the men's 2nd division hence gaining promotion - we turned out in force in the final fixture at Oswestry to pip Wrexham to the post.

Another Atlantic Half!

Chasing the Pack!

The Madeira Half Marathon - January in Madeira sounded like a nice escape from the cold winter of North Wales, but the rain followed us south. It was warm rain though and quite refreshing during the Funchal Half Marathon. We both gave this one a go and despite it being along the coast road it was far from flat! Here's Vicky in the blue top chasing hard through the tropical drizzle.

Looks like a model but this is for real!

The capital of Madeira is Funchal, which is where we stayed at a very pleasant hotel close to the seafront - we were among the youngest there and many of the incumbents seemed to be there for the winter. High above the city and frequently obscured by low cloud, is the village of Monte. We took a hair-raising  bus ride up the steep narrow roads to reach the Monte Tropical Gardens an astonishing creation of follies, lakes stocked with giant Koi Carp, waterfalls and themed gardens. We saw an amazing orchid garden, quite something considering this is not the orchid season, we visited an African sculpture museum, an underground gemstone museum and wandered among the maze of different sights.

All the way?

One way back down to Funchal is on the traditional toboggans. Steered by teams of costumed locals these are pushed down some alarmingly steep streets - there are no brakes and stopping relies on the stout boots that you see the men wearing. And I didn't see any seat belts either! We took the bus back down.


Beer in Madeira is synonymous with Coral Lager, the local brew which is found everywhere. In our hotel the bar font didn't even have any indicator of what poured out - the assumption seems to be that if you ask for a beer you want Coral Lager. We managed to find the only microbrew bar down a side street in Funchal where we found a selection of taps dispensing Portuguese craft beers including a tasty IPA and a smoked porter - marvellous - we went back the next night and the night after!

Home on the Range

Hope they've not sent me round again!

A bit of a gloomy photo but then it was a gloomy day. Highlight of the cross country season in North Wales is the Rhug Championship event near Corwen. It's a course with a difference because it's run on Lord Newborough's estate and race HQ is the  estate farmshop which is famous for its bison meat. There's been a herd of North American bison here for several years and they've become a bit of a tourist attraction in their own right. Meanwhile we are on the opposite side of the road and the very wet course is laid out on rough pasture -  no well worn paths to follow here! Two laps for the ladies, four for the men, apart from the older men who just do three - how can they keep count? You might well ask! This race is always in January and staying afterwards for the presentations is a challenge as it's usually freezing - today was no different - but I guess it was worth it. The Harriers won a number of medals including a team silver and an individual silver for yours truly.

Lord Newborough is always up for new ideas for attracting new customers and making more money and he's taught one of his bison to jump up onto a prominent position next to the main road - here it is standing on four wooden pillars with an exhausted runner posing underneath.

Bison Burger anyone? 

Festive Parkrunning

You've forgotten your barcode, now bite the dust!

Shipley Park in the south of Derbyshire was created out of the remnants of Shipley Hall's grounds and a vast area of disused railway lines and coal pits and open cast mines. Various attempts have been made to do something constructive with the area including the installation of an amusement park called the American Adventure. For twenty years the folk of the East Midlands were entertained with white-knuckle rides, a ferris wheel and even a shoot out at the OK Corral. It's all been knocked down, the roller coasters, etc, dismantled and reassembled elsewhere and the site levelled for development. Most of the rest of the park is now a vast attractive semi wild area reserved for walking, biking, horse riding and a Parkrun.

Loop the loop - two outer loops and one inner loop! 

I always worry about Parkruns with more than one lap, am I going to lose count and do an extra lap? Will I get lost and finish with a dreadful time? The website map looked complicate enough but then the organisers announced that we wouldn't be running round the very muddy recreation field at the start (the green space at the top of the map) but would be doing an extra inner lap as shown on my Strava trace. As it was I managed to negotiate the various twists and turns including the crossover point and finished strongly - but with a time of 24:30 this was a bit longer than 5K!

No we didn't run through the boating lake!

Even more complicated was the Parkrun at St Helens on New Years Day. At least it followed the website map and I was happy with 21:26. Here we had two and a half outer laps and an inner one round a nice traditional Victorian park named, you've spotted it, Victoria Park. We were treated to well tended formal flower beds, play areas and a lovely bandstand where the enthusiastic organisers had laid on free tea and coffee for the thirsty park runners. I had hoped to get to four or even five Parkruns over Christmas and New Year but with one thing and another I ended up doing two. The two-in-a-day winner of St Helens Parkrun had already won the Widnes Parkrun (also in a Victoria Park, a 9 am start) and then cycled 9 miles to start at St Helens at 10:30!

The bandstand with band (in summer!)

Another Place (and another PB!)

Can he see anything out there?

Well here we are - just before Christmas on a cold foggy chilly beach looking out onto the Irish Sea. There are one hundred identical metal statues standing on Crosby beach south of Southport just like this one. These are Anthony Gormley's 'Iron Men' all facing westwards into the sunset, except this is a misty Saturday morning at 10 am and they can't see very far. What brought us up here wasn't just the statues but the fact that it's the venue for the Crosby Parkrun. After our beach run (well some of it was on the beach) we decided to pose for some pics. And a very friendly Parkrun it was too - we repaired to the Crosby Leisure Centre after the event for an inexpensive ham and cheese toastie and were offered cakes galore by the cheerful Parkrun organising team. As we sat drinking our cups of tea the laptop was whirring around on the next table as the results were inputted - TRING!! here's our results on my phone. Wow a PB for Vicky - first Parkrun under 30 mins - her 75th Parkrun and she's come in in 29:39 despite going down a rabbit hole on the grassy run in!

Strong man!

So....back to the statues, Anthony Gormley is a bit more famous for his Angel of the North, familiar to those stuck in motorway traffic near Gateshead in the north east of England.  As I've already mentioned there are 100 'Iron Men' placed out on the beach here at regular intervals - you can see, if you blow up this photo,  the the next Iron Man in the mist just above my right hand. That's the hand that's pushing this man down into the quicksand. Only kidding! I thought that this chappie had been buried by shifting sands but it seems that when the statues were installed they were positioned at different heights. We will have to go back to watch the tide come in - or even watch the tide go out and see the figures emerging from the waves. (I should point out that Crosby Parkrun is rerouted when the tide's in for obvious reasons.) By the way 'Another Place' refers to the name of the exhibit, i.e. the hundred iron men; when Gormley's sculpture was installed at Crosby there were complaints about the offensive nature of the statues (i.e. naked men, gosh!) As we ran past some of them were clothed in hi viz marshal's vests and Santa hats, but these were all removed by the time we returned for our Baywatch style photoshoot! The picture beneath is rather atmospheric don't you think? However I can't take credit for this one - must have been taken by a real photographer.

I can see North Wales I think!

Hyde Park

Easy does it!

A chilly parkrun this weekend - Vicky decided not to risk it and watched from a safe distance. A slow one for me at 23:40 but then I did take it steady. This was a most enjoyable little gallop with around half the course on a trail through a leafy dell - having said that, at this time of year most of the leaves are underfoot. I'm not a fan of multi lap courses (especially like the recent Bangor XC where I set off on a fourth lap to be shouted back) but here I managed to keep count of the three laps - this was Hyde Park, not in London but in Hyde on the eastern side of Manchester. We should have started by the bandstand but it was too icy there. I'll give it another go sometime (in the summer - maybe there'll be a band on the bandstand!)

Saw most of this park!

Here's the Strava plot - good use of the paths in a small park I thought! Just 60 runners on Saturday but their record attendance is over 300 - that would, I imagine, be a little bit congested.

This is a Strava map recorded by a friend of ours in Australia - was she trying to chase a dog? What other possible explanation could there be? Had a kangaroo picked up her watch? Well I had to know so I messaged her and found out that she was picking up sticks before mowing the lawn (big lawn!) Only when that was done did she go on her proper run.

Missed a stick!