The rain started at about 10pm and continued drumming on our roof through the night.
We both woke up before the alarm and sprang into action to get ready for parkrun. This takes a bit longer than at home because we have to pack everything up, unhook the EHU, remove the silver screen without getting drenched.
But we were soon ready for the off, about a 40 minute drive. We knew where we were going because we did a recce on our way up to the campsite on Tuesday.
Avoiding some large puddles across the country roads and coming across a group of motorists who had stopped to remove a large branch from the road we made our way to the parkrun in Druridge Bay Country park.
My next challenge was to negotiate the car park ticket machine. We could park free of charge for one hour or we could display our parkrun barcode for free parking until 10.30am. We wanted to stay longer but it seemed as though the machine would take your money but just allow one hour. However it had sorted itself out by the time it was my turn.
So we gathered in the rain for the briefing before setting off to run two laps of the lake. It didn't stop raining completely but it did ease off so it was a very pleasant run on a good track with a few puddles but no mud. I saw two swans with cygnets, ducks and ducklings and a heron and the flower meadows were very colourful.
After the run there seemed to be a really long queue for the cafe but it turned out that most people were queuing to register for the Operation Overlord Run (to mark D-Day) so we were able to bypass them to reach our tea and bacon butties.
Suitably refreshed, we returned to our van to wash, change and to don waterproofs and walking boots for a walk on the beach. The weather had improved somewhat, windy with short showers.
We found ourselves on part of the Operation Overlord course (hence the photo) so we enjoyed cheering on the runners. At the turning point we continued to follow the course in reverse, starting to recognise some of the runners as they came on another lap.
It was an interesting run, 6.55 miles each lap, part of which was the parkrun route around the lake before heading onto the beach. You could run as many laps as you wanted in 7 hours. Most people we spoke to were doing a half marathon but others were setting off on more laps as we left.
The medals were huge with images of D-Day on the front.
After another cup of tea in the Visitor Centre we spent some time walking alongside the lake, watching cormorants (one with a big fish) tufted ducks, little grebes, and we were able to count the 5 cygnets.
The puddles had more or less gone for our return journey but we did have to slow down at one point because there were so many swallows and martins swooping back and forth across the road. Not sure whether they followed us back to the campsite but there are lots of them circling us now.
If you are ever nearby, I would recommend this beautiful parkrun, rain or shine.
week3run1 ✅. 3 x 17 mins with 1 min walks. 
How did your parkrun or (not)parkrun go?
week 2 begins! 
