Rother Valley romp

I finally made it to Rother Valley this week for my 60th parkrun. On the journey there in the car I had a flashback to 2011 when I fell off the pavement outside my house and sprained my ankle whilst preparing for the Rother Valley 10k. Fortunately there were no such mishaps this time so I arrived in peak condition ready to take on the challenge. 

About 250 runners gathered at the start - a nice touch by the race director to welcome all new park runners (which was greeted by a spontaneous round of applause) and parkrun tourists including one from Aberdeen, another from New Zealand. 

Before heading off I chatted with Helen, one of the volunteers, who told me she was taking it easy today recovering from a 24 hour marathon run in Leeds, Mark for whom this was his sixth parkrun in 2 years, and his partner Sarah who was clearly trying to encourage him to participate more regularly! 

Rother Valley is a very flat course - a single lap of the beautiful park so my time of 24.20 (81st place) was not unexpected but pleasing nonetheless. 

The morning concluded with the traditional parkun coffee in the company of my daughter, lots of other runners, children, buggies and several well behaved dogs, including my Labrador, Isla. Just before we left Chris and Anastasia on the next table told us this was their 61st parkrun at 40 different events around the UK and including Singapore - truly impressive parkrun tourists! 

 Anastasia is originally from Lithuania, one of those countries created out of the break up of the Soviet Union in the late 80s/early 90s. The conversation reminded me of something Tom William from parkrun said a while ago about his trip to an event in Moscow. It occurred to him that parkrunners in Moscow were really no different to parkrunners in the UK, or any other part of the world for that matter.  In the words of Jo Cox MP: "The things that unite us are so much more significant than the things that divide us".

 Wise words Jo - lest we forget, particularly in these uncertain and challenging times...

 Apologies if I got a bit deep and philosophical on you there there for a moment - I promise to return to the fun stuff next time...!

 Talking of next time, that will be in about a month. I checked online and there are no parkruns on the island of Islay or the Mull of Kintyre which is where we'll be next weekend in the campavan. Then we're off on holiday to Italy for 2 weeks, and as far as I'm aware there are no parkruns in that wonderful country - not yet anyway..!

 Another fun time and a great start to the weekend - I will definitely be returning to Rother Valley before too long.  

Happy parkrunning..!

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