Woodbank Parkrun

I decided to take the plunge run the first Woodbank 5K Park Run on Saturday morning. To get here I memorized the directions, alternatively walking and jogging. The final road that I thought backed onto the park was impenetrable and I had to ask a dog walker for an accessible route to the running track. He advised me to follow a trail path at the end of Bideford Road. I found the running track with minutes to spare. There was to be respectable turnout of 59 runners. The route seemed an obvious place for running with its oval running track which would lead, out of the stadium, onto a path with wide paths. I wondered if most would be experienced runners familiar with the running track and I had no qualms about putting myself at the back of the runners lining up. There wasn’t the throng of runners that may initially slow things by dint of sheer numbers so being at the back of the pack would have no bearing on my performance.

It was a bright sunny morning and perfect conditions for the run. It wasn’t long after completing the initial running track that I established my position which turned out to be middling. I was able to see the person ahead of me by a respectable distance and aspire to overtake them if I had it in the tank to do so. The track is mainly flatter than Bramhall Park’s but it occurred to me running down Vernon Park’s path that what goes down will invariably come up which it certainly did after one sharp incline. On this trail, unlike Bramhall Park, I was also able to get a sense of how far ahead the front runners are on the further path as they swept past on an adjoining path many minutes ahead of us.

My final time at 25 and a half minutes was at about one minute slower than normal. I am loathe to blame it on anything other than a drop in my physical performance although my unfamiliarity with the new route may have contributed. At Bramhall Park, I know the parts to hold off and where to build speed and I‘d hope that my next run on this track finds me using my acquired knowledge of this route to hone my style better.

The greater space and smaller turnout to Stockport’s other established 5K run meant that I didn’t establish the familiar rivalries on the track and strike up any chat while queuing up with my number position at the end (although the efficiency of the coming of bar code system may unwittingly iron out the latter) . Bramhall Park’s greater numbers within smaller confines brings a more noticable community feel but as numbers expand on this race (not to mention the on site tuck shop and nearby café) , I’m sure the same will occur here. To organise two 5K runs in Stockport at the same time shows what a great amount of interest there is and with this now requiring double the amount of volunteers, I am full of admiration for the organizers and volunteers of the park runs.

http://www.parkrun.org.uk/woodbank/Home.aspx

We've been camping

Tuesday 4th August 2009

I am not a fan of camping. I like breathing in the air and being around nature. I like the wafting smell of powdered soup. But I also like to return to a warm, snug bed and for basic errands like making a hot drink and travelling to facilities not to be too laboured and hazardoud an activity.

We arrived at the Bakewell Camping and Caravanning Club site in wet and blustery conditions and left a complaining Ed strapped into his car seat as we set about putting the tent up. The weather helped to concentrate our minds to the task in hand. I tried not to glance too much at the tent next to us that was palpitating in and out with the wind.

We surprised ourselves by getting it up in a decent amount of time, something that the couple in the next tent even complimented us on. Jan waved off my suggestion that we should have a contingency plan if our tent was to blow down in the night. In the conditions, we drove to the town centre – to our shame, it’s a walkable distance. We walked along the river and found a coffee shop and, naturally, had the Bakewell Tart, a lemon version of which I found delightful with the first bites and sickly with the last.

Back at the tent, we had a drink at the on site bar, came back to the tent and made up Ed’s milk. We put him to bed whereby he would resurface constantly to have a scamper around the insides of our tent until 10:30. The wind up lantern, it transpired, didn’t generate much light – some batteries are needed there. Outside, I side-stepped muddy trails with the torch.

Wednesday 5th August 2009

Our tent is on a downward facing bank which, in the conditions, makes getting away in the car very difficult. In fact, our car got stuck in the mud: the wheels whirred frantically, spraying some mud my way after I had tried giving the car a push. I subsequently sought the guy with the tractor and applied a tow hook at the front of our car. The tractor man eventually got us to the top of the slope. Buy that man a drink if we see him at the bar later.

There was a stationary convoy of traffic to the Bakewell show which brought back memories of getting stuck in similar on the way to last year’s Dunster show. In what was still a slightly fraught journey we went a long way round around Bakewell. We decided to catch a steam train to Matlock from the Rowsley South stop. When, on arriving at Rowsley South, I saw a penguin bin at the end of the ramp to the station it cheered me. A chap on the opposite table of our train didn’t agree and thought the bin to be naff and aimed at the children. But it was the exception as all the other characteristics of a steam train station were in place - the old world signs and slow paced guy manning the ticket booth who was eventually roused from his activities to serve me. On the train there was even some people making disapproving noises of Lord Beeching’s rail legacy on the next table up.

We followed the long riverside walk into the town centre, ate out (beans on toast for Ed) and bought another lamp for our tent and batteries for our existing wind up lantern. This period marked a change in the weather. When we got back to our tent the mud had dried a little, campers had shed upper layers of clothing and there was the smell of barbecues oozing around. We laid out our picnic cloth, cooked some Linda McCartney sausages and I began to see the potential of doing this. With the encroaching darkness after 9pm we were also able to read in altogether brighter conditions.

Thursday 6th August 2009

We learnt our lesson from the previous days and didn’t put any shoes or socks on Ed. By the end of his morning of running around the field, his toe nails were black. ‘Make sure he has a long soak in the bath later on’ said Jan.

As we packed up in the morning, it occurred to me that it’s not setting the tent up that’s the hard bit – it’s packing the thing. Several times we tried to straighten out the tent after taking it down – we folded it in thirds, physically rolled across it whereby the air content would bulge at the other end from where we were folding it.

We adjudged thus camping trip to have gone reasonably well and have committed to a second bout of camping in Ripley later in the month. A full compliment of good weather days would go a long way. Note to self: Buy some wellies.