Maidenhead parkrun

“Rest: Maybe a very very easy Park Run if you feel so motivated….”

I have had a very lazy week.  My trainers have languished unused by the door*, my lycras have hung forlornly on the clothes airer and my garmin has been in solitary confinement, cut off from its satellite mates.

But Saturday is parkrunday, and parkrunday is only to be missed in extreme circumstances, so this morning I set my alarm for reasonable o’clock, leapt out of bed in a single bound, grabbed a cup of tea and waited for my limousine** to whisk me off to Maidenhead parkrun for a pootle with friends.

We arrived in the nick of time***, and after a mad dash**** for the start, we had just enough time to nod at a few familiar faces***** and we were off.

The course is lovely.

It starts with a dash for a gap in the bushes and you then swing round to the left to enter the trees.  You run along the side of the nature reserve (built, I understand, on top of an old rubbish dump) before cutting across to the canal on a soft gravel section.  You then run back down alongside the canal towards the beginning of the lap, but before you can start lap two, you have to run a teeny-tiny loop of the teeny-tiny dell with its teeny-tiny hill.  You then run the main lap and teeny loop again before peeling off back towards the finishing funnel.

It’s slightly narrow in places, and the gravel section probably adds a little bit to the times, but it’s essentially flat (barring the teeny-tiny hill) and really rather pretty.

And it also boasts a Toby Carvery which offers an all you can eat breakfast (with free tea or coffee if you flash your barcode).  Just be warned (as I fortunately was when I asked if the breakfast was veggie friendly), that the Yorkshire puddings come with hidden bacon bits.

A beautiful parkrun, a warm welcome from Ed the ED and StJohn (parkrun tourist and Maidenhead parkrun RD), and an enjoyable natter with Vanessa, Kat, Jools and Norm over breakfast.  It’s parkrundays like this which keep me coming back again and again and again.

 

* except the ones I wore for Thames Path.  They spent the week mouldering in a dry bag and are now very, very stinky.

** thanks Norm.

*** 8:15am.  There was no traffic, whatsoever at all.

**** extremely leisurely stroll.

***** nod, chat, chat some more, find the satellites, go back to find the loos, do some more chatting, get changed, admire an extremely shiny new watch, find the satellites again, listen to the new runners’ briefing, listen to the full run briefing, adjust our shoelaces, and find the satellites for a third time.

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