Don't Do a Parkrun...

...if you have any tendency to addiction.

When I first considered a Parkrun it was with the intent of working on my speed and having a fairly absolute monthly measure of how it was going. So I decided just to do one per month, usually on the first Saturday and to stay on the fells for other the other three or four Saturdays of each month.

I did my first one at Leverhulme Park in September and left with two lasting impressions:- first, just how great the mood was and how everybody seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves, and second, just how slow I was - over 30 minutes for 5k!

October saw me back at Leverhulme Park to run almost a full minute slower!

Knowing how interested YJ would be in the statistics that the weekly results include - especially the one that compares your run time with the world 5k record for your age - I persuaded him to try a Parkrun with the result that we chose the Cuerden Valley course as being approximately midway between our homes and met there yesterday morning. The rain came down like it was going out of fashion, but it failed to dampen spirits.

YJ finished 54th out of 126 finishers - BUT on the basis of the world record for his age as a percentage of his time, he was 5th overall! I didn't do so well, but I did read later that this course is 'officially' recognized by Parkrun as being the toughest in the area, with an average finish time almost two minutes slower than that for Leverhulme Park.

Back to the addiction issue - There is a new course at Haigh Hall which is quite runnable from Grimeford Grange, so I might need to slip one in there before my December return to Bolton. YJ was wondering if he could try one at Brighton on the day before his long planned 10k there on the 15th Nov but perhaps most disturbing of all, at Cuerden we met two CleM runners, who I have never seen anywhere but at a fell race who have clocked up 143 Parkruns between them at twenty-odd different venues! Could this be the death knoll for fell running?