Over The Contours

I suppose I am now a fully-fledged parkrun tourist as this morning I completed my first parkrun outside of the UK and somehow managed to finish first! We're staying at my sister's house in northern France and the nearest parkrun is Parkrun de Rouen. Rouen is a lovely city on the River Seine and the parkrun takes place on the southern stretch of the river. A 70-mile drive meant an early start through the beautiful rolling French countryside. It was only when I entered Rouen itself that I realised it's a far bigger city than I realised; the city centre rises up the hillsides away from the river with multiple bridges criss-crossing over the Seine. I was aiming for Quai (dock) 106; a former dockyard area that's been gentrified and is now a very smart and welcoming area. The start of the parkrun is relatively easy to find, even with the roadworks currently in place. There's a large free carpark right next to the start. So, on a warm June morning, around thirty pe

At some point last week, my wife, sister-in-law and her husband decided that we would all drive up to Northampton to see my father-in-law; knowing me too well, my wife pointed out that I wouldn't make the trip unless I got to do a parkrun on the way (I sound like right git reading that back...). Anyway, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to bag a new parkrun. I opened up the parkrun map and looked for one close to the M25, but not so far from home that we'd have to leave at a stupidly early time...that's when I noticed Gunpowder. With a name like that, I'd already made my mind up. Now, as you may know from my previous post, I'm a stressy sort and as I wasn't driving I wasn't in complete control of the time we'd arrive. We left Kent a little late and the sat nav listed our ETA at 8.59 - not good. If we were to hit any traffic on the way it would be a disaster. Anyway, remarkably, Dave managed to shave over ten minutes off the ETA (legally,

I've been very lucky in the last couple of weeks; a short break to stay at my sister's house in northern France, followed by a conference in Edinburgh. Of course, whenever I go somewhere new I see it as an excellent opportunity to squeeze in as many runs as I can. I generally subscribe to the view that a change is as good as a rest and so France and Edinburgh in the space of two weeks seemed ideal. This was my first visit to my sister's place in Frohen-sur-Authie; a small village in the Somme region. I'd eagerly plotted a couple of runs, including an 18-miler, only to be told by my brother-in-law (who is a keen cyclist) that the routes I had plotted were either very hilly or on busy roads. With Steve's input, I went back to the drawing board and re-plotted a decent long route which included a long stint on the disused La Gare railway route from Bernatre to Auxi-le-Chateau; this would be my 'long Tuesday' run. You are now entering... On arrival in Fr