The photo at the bottom is what a section of our park looked like last Sunday as the River Avon decided to go for a stroll along the footpaths. To say I’ve been worried about this meet up has been an understatement! My grey hair has grey hair. As Dexy5 reminded me, this is the third time we’ve tried to have it. I can’t even remember why we called it off the first time but the second time the parkrun was cancelled so we ended up at Leamington Spa. This time we had the threat of Noah parking his Ark on our parkrun route to collect a couple of swans.
It was the perfect opportunity for a meetup as Katnap ’s C25k group was graduating and Sandie1961 ’s friend was in that group. Also, it being autumn, Stratford upon Avon was relatively quiet as it was not being overrun by tourists. So it had to be today! But the weather kept me on my toes. I’ve spent the week updating Sandie, Dexy5 , UpTheStanley , Windoze , BaddieThePirate , Oldfloss , cheekychipmunks and OldGirlRuns with both weather and river level forecasts. I had feared the worst when we tried to walk through the park last weekend when the only benches available needed a snorkel and wetsuit.
We walked some of the course yesterday and I gave it a 70% chance, the water lapping against the edge of the bank. The parkrun Facebook page however, got increasingly positive the longer the evening went on and this morning I woke up to a cold, crisp, sunny day! It was due to rain but not until just after the run was due to finish - Amazing!!! Yay!
Katnap went off to meet with his group at the sports club and eldest kitten and I went to meet with all but Baddie & Floss who were unable to come (😢), at the bottom of the RSC tower. It felt strange but right having our VRBs on home soil and wonderful to be able to share our fab parkrun with them. We also met up again with two more of Sandie’s friends who we had first met at the Wild Wine Run back in September.
As predicted, the Run Director’s speech overran and we didn’t get started until about 9.15 🤣 I don’t think we ever start on time, even when it’s tipping it down!! It was much more congested than it has been the last few weeks with the weather and rugby keeping the numbers at half the usual amount. So it was a slow start with people, mud and puddles making it awkward to get any speed up. However, this didn’t really hold anyone back on our traditionally flat, fast, course with both Sandie and Cheeky getting 5k PBs.
Personally, my legs were in better condition than they have been in quite a while and I got to the finish in just under 28 minutes. Normally I’m completely shattered when I break 28 but I’d managed to chat to lots of people on the way round, so I can only think that something has changed with both my breathing and my muscle conditioning - I was so chuffed as I’ve not been that quick at parkrun since June! Lack of sleep recently has really affected my leg strength as well as my mood and last week my calves were still recovering from a (vicious but definitely needed) sports massage, so this run, with the all my VRBs and the general ease of running has been a real pick-me-up 😊
After the run we all met up for coffee and the biggest cakes you have ever seen at a nearby cafe, by which time & true to predictions, it was raining heavily! We spent a long time chatting both with VRBs and Chris’s group. We must have taken up half the cafe between the two groups!
So, panic over. It can rain now and I can relax, we made it! Back home with our usual bacon rolls and a slice each of Windoze’s wonderful chocolate brownie 😋.
Tentative arrangements have been made for future meet-ups at several different venues, so we will keep you posted.
In the end, the only crisis of the whole morning was the toilets not being open before the run started!
A wonderful day 😊
HM training - taking the long view (ramble warning)
10 miler....
