We participated in a few parkruns while in the UK.
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| Wormwood Scrubs |
We started our parkrun tourism on 16 August at Wormwood Scrubs parkrun, which happens to be on the field behind the regional jail! Thankfully we didn't realise it at the time. It was just me who ran - Tony has a foot injury so he and the kids took on the role of cheer squad. The run was a two lap course around an oval, completely on grass. It was quite a different feeling running on grass. Time was nothing special but it was a great atmosphere with only 45 runners. The kids managed to get involved, as they often do, sorting barcodes. We joined the group for coffee in the clubrooms afterwards and met some great people and loved sharing parkrun stories.
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| Sorting barcodes at Wormwood Scrubs |
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| #DFYB at Wimbledon! |
There are several junior parkruns in the UK, where the kids run a 2km course on their own. The format is exactly the same as parkrun, with all kids needing to be registered and receiving a token as they finish. On the Sunday morning, we headed to Wimbledon Park for the kids to have a go. All three ran - the first parkrun for Sophie so she was very excited! They all did a great run and had huge smiles on their faces!
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| Sophie and Lach at Wimbledon Park |
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| 235 tokens! |
Saturday 23 August saw us over in Bristol on the west coast of England. We chose to run at Ashton Court, which must rate as one of the most difficult courses in England! The first 2.5km is uphill .... the second 2.5km is downhill! I had a great negative split on this run! About 14 mins for the first 2.5km and about 11 for the second half! Tony also ran this week - his foot felt better for the race, but he did suffer for the rest of the day, being in considerable pain! The kids once again sorted barcodes, however for 235 runners, this was a much bigger task than they are used to! It is done while everyone enjoyed a coffee, so it kept them occupied!
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Sophie at Little Stoke
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Sunday morning saw us at Little Stoke for junior parkrun. Just the girls ran this week and once again, did it with great smiles and great times.
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| Halfway through at Southampton |
By Saturday 30 August, we were down south in Southampton. There were several parkruns to chose from in the region, with most of them being very big. We ended up running at Southampton Common, which was a figure eight course in a beautiful park. Tony started .... but that on-going foot injury is still on-going. After 2kms, he was hurting badly, so withdrew and I continued. This was the biggest parkrun we experienced, with 465 runners. I felt my time was slow at 25mins, but I was still 25th female so pleased with that! This parkrun has a large university population, due to two universities in the city. Once university starts, the numbers rise and the average times drop, as the young, fit females tend to run rather fast times!
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| Liv at Southampton junior parkrun |
Finally, we finished our parkrun tourism stint with junior parkrun at Southampton on Sunday. This was an extremely friendly group of people with some very impressive junior runners! They were fast! The fastest runner did the 2km is just less than 7 mins, but missed the course record at 6.43 mins! Tony offered his services as a volunteer marshal on the course, and got to wear a hi-viz jacket! Junior parkrun is a great concept and we hope that it can start in Australia at some stage.
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