This is the cat family’s 4th HU VRB meetup and has been a tricky one to set up; finding a date, getting everyone together and then finding the original idea of meeting at Stratford was cancelled due to the manic River Festival! So me, Katnap , eldest kitten, Sandie1961 , cheekychipmunks and her lovely, big smiley dog, Floss, launched ourselves on Windoze home parkrun of Leamington Spa.
We’ve been meaning to do it for ages, so for Katnap and I it was a good one to tick off the list. Unfortunately we’d had a really busy week, youngest kitten couldn’t make it as he’d only just got home from a school trip and eldest kitten and I were nursing colds. But there was no way I was going to miss this, I’d already missed three weeks of parkruns because of busy Saturdays as it was.
We were a bit late as we’d had to sort out a very tired youngest kitten with his paper round, then we kept bumping into people we knew, but we found our visitors standing chatting and we were soon catching up again. Cheeky had come all the way from Bristol and Sandie was on a visit to Stratford and beyond. Windoze was sneaking in a quick 5k before the Leam Half the next day.
It was very colourful as it was the Pride Parkrun, so there were people dressed in rainbow coloured tutus, the tail walker was in a unicorn 🦄 onesie (🥵) and there were rainbow flags everywhere 🌈🌈🌈. There was even the local brass band, Royal Spa Brass 🎺 .
Before we knew it we were off. Definitely one for the trail shoes, it started off along the lumpy grass (a bit like Marple) and then to some wooded trails. It goes around the edges of an abandoned golf course and then you get to ‘The Hill’... Everyone warned me about ‘The Hill’ but it really wasn’t so bad (bring on Lyme Park!)! There’s still another 3k or so after that and it’s mainly muddied trail. Katnap, Windoze and I chatted until Windoze decided to put some speed in and Katnap wasn’t far behind. I pootled along as I couldn’t push it much today, I was just pleased to run.
I did put a bit of a spurt on with 1k to go (I can’t help myself!) and then I dashed to the funnel, gasping. It took me a few minutes to catch my breath when I realised I still had eldest kitten’s barcode! So I hung around at the funnel, clapped cheeky in (didn’t spot Sandie but she was there somewhere!), spotted a few more people I knew and soon eldest kitten came thundering through, giving it his all for the last 200m.
After the run we all went for the (now) traditional post-parkrun coffee and cake at the nearest cafe, which happened to be in the newly refurbished leisure centre and we spent a happy hour catching up and swapping stories.
It was a lovely meetup with lovely people (and cheeky’s especially lovely dog!) and I know we’ll catch up again soon...Lyme Park awaits in October with many other semi-masochistic runners (hello Pianism & BaddieThePirate to name but a few!) and we all have runs in between. Sorry Baddie, Dexy5 and UpTheStanley couldn’t make it but I’m sure we’ll find a calmer day to finally make Stratford happen. Baddie, I hope your eye gets very better soon, keep that patch on! Windoze - good luck tomorrow and look after that knee 👍👍👍💪
Happy running, and especially happy Parkrunning! 🏃🏻♀️🏃🏽♂️🏃🏻♀️🏃🏽♂️🏃🏻♀️🏃🏽♂️😀🦆
It looks absolutely terrific.. I am really hoping to get to another running meet with everyone... at some point before Lyme Park!!!
Parkrun volunteering and (not) parkrun
100th (not) parkrun/real parkrun 
