Today I can honestly say was the best parkrunday ever. This is nothing to do with times, positions or pb's - just about people, lots of people! Great friends, close friends, passing acquaintances and online friends, friends we see regularly and some not seen for over 4 years!!
First of all New Year's Eve was spent with great friends Vicki (Girlfriend), Geoff (Housemate) and Neil (not a runner but my best mate of 25 years!). Yes we had a few drinks, yes we stayed up late but we were all up on time for our respective plans for parkrun.
Mine included heading over to Pontefract first of all with Vicki for parkrun number 199 for me with Vicki being sociable and supportive! The journey to 199 had been tricky with a number of cancellations over the past few weeks but none had been missed despite traumas and last minute changes of plans and rushed drives! So we had been planning this for a while, and we were nearly there!
Arrival at Ponte warned us it was going to be a busy one - included in the attendees planned were a number of Uber Tourists I had met over 4 years previously. Rosemary and Nicola I met in my old parkrunners on Tour Group on FB that I started when there were only about 20 parkruns in the country. We first met at Edinburgh parkrun in 2013 and (she claims coincidentally!) Rosemary had that exact weekend's EMF T-Shirt on today! Subconscious at work or spectacular planning, who can say!! With them was Ian whom I met on parkrun tour to Poland at about the same time - the 3 of them came to Leeds later that year on tour and we had a fantastic night out! Apart from bumping into Ian at Warwick services 3 months ago I had not had the pleasure of meeting them since!
I managed to catch up with all 3 before setting off - though those at the front were so busy nattering it took 10 seconds of yelling at them from the hundreds behind before they actually started moving! A lesson in etiquette there me thinks!!
A relatively fast run for NYD meant we had plenty of time before heading off to Rothwell - not before being yelled at by 14 (?) year old Mia Butler from Spenborough to keep going and meeting speed merchant (actually a 200m specialist!) Anthony Bowyer of Wakefield who nearly caught me!! Great work by both!!
So on to Rothwell - parkrun number 200 for me and 50 for Vicki and to be joined by housemate and long suffering parkrun tourism buddy Geoff. Ian, Rosemary, Nicola changed their plans to join us at Rothwell instead of Nostell which was great - the number of other fantastic parkrun friends there was simply amazing, including Graham Pawley - the first parkrunner I met getting out of my car at my first ever parkrun in 2010!!!
Rothwell was muddy - I mean proper filthy and impossible to run on in the main! That didn't matter, Vicki and I ran together not bothered about times, Geoff had a guide Caroline Davies who really helped him out with the conditions and the sheer number of runners! So many others there made it a brilliant 2nd run of the day which of course ended up with sausage sandwiches, coffee and cake! It was great to meet more of the team from Rothwell where Vicki is an RD and just a great
