Crystal Palace parkrun plus

My tomorrow is spoken for, so today was long run day.  After last week’s shortened outing, I was looking for a 15 mile route that I could combine with a parkrun.

I came up with this:

Crystal Palace parkrun, followed by a run to Lloyd Park, a freedom run* around the Lloyd Park parkrun course and a dash** along the tram line*** to make up the distance.

Crystal Palace parkrun was fun.  A couple of nervous first-timers, some enthusiastic marshalling, two wolves**** and a determined young lad doing great service as the tail runner.  It has hills (though they really aren’t that bad compared to some) and dinosaurs***** and dog walkers who say hello.

The run to Lloyd park was uneventful.  I toyed with the idea of stopping to take photographs with which to adorn my blog, but the industrial estates, roadworks and forlorn christmas tree, while authentic, really weren’t that picturesque.

Lloyd park was as I remembered.  Grassy and hilly and riddled with potential shortcuts.  I did manage to resist them (and even put in a token long-cut at some point when my memory played me false) but also walked a fair bit, as I was beginning to flag ever-so-slightly.

The last section was tough.  I was exhausted and pretty much every street name featured “hill” in it somewhere.  But it was a pretty enough footpath along the tram route, and it got me to fifteen miles.  Not all of them running, admittedly, but it’s all time on feet, right?

After that it was a tram back towards Croydon, a chocolate milkshake and a bag of crisps.  Followed by an afternoon featuring the sofa and the cat.

I ache.

* or freedom run/walk/stagger to be precise
** hobble
***footpath along-side the tram-line
****wolf-style dog products.  Big, furry, muchly toothed.
*****according to the description.  I completely failed to spot them.

 

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