It started innocently enough. I was searching for a new-to-me parkrun for this Saturday, and thought I’d update my list of UK parkruns cross-referenced against parkruns I’ve done.
And then I thought “I wonder which of these Paul Freyne (top of the most events table) has been to”. And it spiralled from there.
It turns out that there are only 17 UK parkruns which have never been run by one of the 8 members of the Cowell Club. Which ones? These:
- East Midlands
- Darley
- North East England
- Hackworth
- South Shields
- North West England
- Carlisle
- Workington
- Northern Ireland
- Citypark
- Derry City
- MUSA Cookstown
- Overseas Military Bases
- Camp Bastion
- Scotland
- Camperdown
- Eglinton
- South East England
- Margate
- Pegwell Bay
- South West England
- Plymvalley
- Yorkshire and Humberside
- Cross Flatts
- Sheffield Castle
- Temple Newsam
Now – I’m not surprised by some of those. Most of the Cowell Club members are based in the South, so to find that there are some Northern Ireland and Scotland parkruns on the list doesn’t seem unreasonable. But Temple Newsam? It’s a stone’s throw from Leeds, the home of Cowell Club member Steve Darby. I was well and truly shocked.
The most interesting thing was that I have not been to a single parkrun on the list, but Jovial Gnome, who has a half-Cowell under his belt despite living miles and miles and miles from a parkrun, has run two, Darley and Cross Flatts.
I really need to get out more.
abradypus 
If and when you do Darley, let me know.
(Preferably at a time we are both capable of running) 🙂
Will do.
Brilliant blog, stato Tom Williams would be proud of you! 🙂 And assuming that they are still running it I will chalk another one off the list when I do South Shields on Saturday! Darley has a monster hill that you do twice but is repaid with some rather nice downhill!
Have fun!
If you needed something to do you should have asked, have spring cleaning that needs doing.
Hmmm. Stats or cleaning? I’ll stick to stats I think.
I won’t ask how long it took you to work that out but instead will revel in the fact that although I am nowhere near joining the Cowell Club I have done Pegwell Bay parkrun 🙂
Revel away!