Over The Contours

When I was a kid growing up in the north, I'd often hear on the weather forecast of scorching temperatures in Gravesend, Kent. I grew up thinking that Gravesend had its own little microclimate; a sun-drenched oasis in the garden of England. Anyway, it turns out that Gravesend just happens to have one of the lowest positioned weather stations in the UK and soil with a propensity to heat up quickly in the sunlight. Well, either way, Gravesend lived up to its expectations this Sunday as the North Downs Run, which starts and ends just outside Gravesend, was by far the hottest race I've ever participated in. As we gathered next to the Cascades Leisure Centre in Thong, the sun was already beating down. Lots of runners stayed in the shade for as long as they could before the race started. Fortunately, my travel companion and fellow runner Chris had brought some sun screen with him and I gave myself a liberal coating. Chris and I shuffled into the start area ready for the 10.30am s...

The dreaded leg 3; the leg that I'd read so much about..."the climbing leg". Well, on Sunday it was my turn to see for myself. Leg 3 poses some logistical challenges for a recce; namely because the start (Dunmail Raise) and end (Wasdale) are a good hour and thirty minutes away from each other by car. Because of this, I'd arranged with Abigail (the BGR widow) to collect me from Seathwaite in Borrowdale. To that end, I'd run leg 3 and then walk from Wasdale Head via Sty Head to Seathwaite. After a short and slow walk from Grasmere, I reached the starting point at Dunmail Raise. It was 6.00am and there was a little collective of people parked in the lay-by. I didn't get close enough to say hello, but I have a pretty strong feeling that they were a support crew for a Bob Graham attempt. I crossed the stile and began the steep climb up to Steel Fell and Dead Pike. The weather was pretty good; no rain and relatively mild. Some patches of blue sky were appearin...

In my preparations for the Greater Manchester Marathon in April, I've been looking to participate in a number of road races as part of the training. My approach differs from last year where I put in all of the hard miles going solo, whereas this year I want to become accustomed to the race environment and want to push myself beyond what I would do in training. The Deal half marathon was an obvious choice for me as it's relatively local and a quite a few people from my club were running it too. My colleague, Phil, holds the course record and had forewarned me that the course is 'undulating'. Still, it seemed like an ideal opportunity to put in some fast miles. Having parked at Betteshanger country park with my friend Chris, we collected our race numbers and then made our way down the long driveway to the starting line. The weather was awful; it had rained all morning and there was a fairly strong wind blowing. This would be a testing run. I shuffled my way to t...

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,...

Some things are found by chance; the inaugural Dartford Heath parkrun was one of them. Friday, I was eating my lunch and killing time between meetings by exploring the parkrun map. By pure chance I inadvertently zoomed into the west Kent area and noticed two parkrun icons in the Dartford region. Strange. I knew about the existing Dartford parkrun, but I wasn't aware of anything else nearby. I quickly discovered this was the Dartford Heath parkrun and that this was due to have its inaugural event the very next day. I know there's something of an unwritten rule that tourists (and pseudo-tourists like me) should avoid inaugural events in order to not overload the volunteer team and cause unnecessary work, however, the serendipity of finding this event and the fact that it would start the very next day, well....surely it was a sign! I decided I'd break the unwritten rule and make the 55 minute journey to Dartford... I was in the same county at least. The course is on the h...

This is a parkrun that's nearby, but not so nearby you could just nip up the road to do it. Nonetheless, I'm keen to finish all of the parkruns in Kent and I'd heard really good things about the Royal Tunbridge Wells one, so decided to make the 100 mile round trip on this lovely bank holiday weekend. I set out nice and early in the morning sunshine which was probably for the best as I was soon passed by a precession of Police cars along the M2. I only realised they were heading in the same direction as I was when I reached the A249 and was confronted with a huge queue of traffic. In the distance I could see smoke billowing around three or four miles up the road. I was extremely lucky; had I have been perhaps two or three metres up the tarmac, I would have missed the one and only opportunity to do a u-turn...a tiny access ramp between the carriageways. Anyway, a u-turn is just what I did and I quickly re-routed via Blue Bell Hill. So, at around 8.30am I pulled into Dunor...

Finally my hometown has a Parkrun ! Despite now living over 200 miles away, I'd spotted some mutterings on Facebook and in other places about a Northwich Parkrun. It's had a junior Parkrun for some time now, so I thought it was only a matter of time before it would get its own proper one. I managed to work it so that Abigail and I could be staying at my mum and dad's place en route to the Lake District; in doing so, I was able to get to the inaugural event. The course is based in Carey Park, just to the north of the town centre. There is ample free car parking nearby, although I took advantage of its proximity to my parents' place by running there. After a friendly welcome from Amy the Run Director and some warm applause for everyone that made the event happen and we were off. The first mile is a loop around the gravel track circling the large cow field; midway through the loop there's an energy-sapping hill/switchback to watch out for. After mile 1, you then ...

The 3rd March 2018; the day the earth stood still. Well, not quite, but most of the UK did as a blanket of ice and snow - "the Beast from the East" - covered the country. Parkrun took a huge hit this weekend; somewhere close to 410 cancellations. I'd been keeping a close eye on forecasts for much of the week as Abigail and I were travelling to Brighton for a gig on the Saturday evening. Over the duration of the week, forecasts shifted constantly and it became increasingly apparent that travel would be tricky. By the Thursday a number of parkruns had already been cancelled as a precaution; in fact, my local runs at Pegwell Bay, Canterbury, Whitstable and Margate had already cancelled by this point. Fortunately, the parkruns in the vicinity of Brighton and Eastbourne all looked to be going ahead. By Friday the list of cancellations had continued to increase and the weather forecast was increasingly dire. A snow-day email from work gave me the opportunity to reassess thi...

This is one I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Lancaster was my second-home in 2005/2006 when Abigail was doing her Masters up there and I quickly warmed to the city. What I didn’t realise was that the Lancaster Parkrun takes place in Williamson Park around the impressive Ashton Memorial. I only discovered this a few days before whilst working out how to get from our hotel to the Parkrun. Anyway, on a chilly and rainy October morning, I finally made it to the Lancaster Parkrun. During my warm-up run I knew I was in for a tough one as the start (next to the butterfly house) is a good 100m-150m higher than the lower parts of Williamson Park. After a very friendly run briefing and a ‘cosy’ start line gathering I was off; within seconds I was descending down the the wide tarmac paths that spiral around the Ashton Memorial. The paths are wide enough to find some space and to get into a comfortable position.  The sharp descent at the start is a little unnerving though, especially o...