Parkrun Tourism: Frimley Lodge

Hello!

Once again, I’ve been out doing some parkrun tourism and this week I went to join the lovely people at Frimley Lodge Parkrun to celebrate their parkruns 10th birthday.

I went on my own to this one, however it wasn’t a problem because this was definitely one of the friendlier parkruns that I’ve been to.

I arrived on a train, which then meant I had a just under 20 minute walk to where the start was, however there was 2 people who were clearly regulars there who told me exactly where I needed to go, and it was actually a really easy walk.

The course itself was a really nice one, relatively flat, with a section by a river and through forest. It’s a 2 lap course, so if you aren’t up to the full 5km or you get injured, it’s easy to filter out and just do one lap, but it’s also not too repetitive if you do the full 5km. However, it was a pretty muddy course and as it was their 10th birthday, there was a lot of people there, so it got quite congested at certain points.

Overall, I think that this is one of the nicer parkruns that I have visited, and I’m not just saying that because of the large volume of cake provided at the end…

So that was my experience there. If you liked this post, please let me know by giving it a like. To see more of what I have to say, please give me a follow, my socials are linked at the top.

Ash.

My Parkrun Tourism Experience: Killerton

Hello!

I’ve ended up in Devon. Which in itself isn’t a bad thing. However, when you take the fact that I live in a very flat area, and am now in an area with lots of hills, it makes running quite difficult.

However, I still made an effort to get my parkrun tourism in, and went to visit Killerton Parkrun.

The route itself was beautiful, for most of it we were on pretty good paths and it’s a big enough place that the route is just a straight line, run from one end to the other and that’s your 5km.

However, while I was running I did notice a few key differences between it and my local parkrun. I know that each place will be slightly different, but it was interesting to see.

1. The lack of Lonely Goats. I only saw one other goat on course, now I don’t know if there were more and they were in disguise, or if they had other plans that day, but this is a little different to my local. On a bad day, there will still be at least 5 goats on the course.

2. Pacers. I thought it was a standard thing that pacer week was the first Saturday of each month. It turns out I was wrong, at Killerton it was the last Saturday, that threw me a little bit. (I’m not complaining though, I’ll get an extra pacer week.)

3. The Parkrun Police. At Killerton they were out in full force making sure no kids under 11 were on their own. At my local, it gets mentioned at the start, but never really properly enforced. As long as a parent is somewhere within sight, no one really bothers, in fact, the people with really small kids will often dump them with a Marshall and pick them up on their next time around (my parkruns course has multiple laps of certain areas so you can do that.)

4. The People. A very different group of people. At my local, complete strangers will have a chat and encourage each other. At Killerton the only person who spoke to me was the other Goat. As well as this, at Killerton there was a lot more serious runners, at my local there’s a lot of people on their couch to 5k journey.

5. Hills. They apparently exist. They made things difficult…

Anyway, this was just the things I noticed. I hope this enjoyed this post, give it a like if you did. To see more of what I have to say give me a follow.

Ash.

I Joined A Running Club?!

Hello!

I’m not completely sure how this happened. I’m pretty sure this started as one of my terrible ideas at 2am when I can’t sleep.

I joined a running club.

I have a couple of friends who I’ve made through parkrun who are members of Lonely Goat Running club. At some point I somehow ended up on their website, where I found out more about the club.

Lonely Goat Running Club is an online club for all ages and abilities, there’s no official sign up unless you want to be affiliated to England Athletics, depending on how things go this is something I may do, and it runs off the values of Support, Inspire, Achieve. Which I figured I could do.

So I joined their Facebook group, got myself a shirt (team purple) and here we are…

I wore it to my local parkrun on Saturday and I had probably one of the best runs I’ve been on, not in terms of my time, but all the other Lonely Goats said hi to me and I just thought that was nice.

Anyway, to find out more about the Lonely Goats click here. If you enjoyed this post give it a like. To see more of what I have to say give me a follow. My socials are linked at the top.

Ash.

Types of people at Parkrun

Hello!

Lately I’ve started running… I say lately… About a year ago. (The world must be ending). The main time I tend to run is on Saturdays at the parkrun. While I’ve been going, I’ve noticed there are a few certain types of people.

1. The person in a marathon T-shirt. These people tend to be the ones who finish in around 18 minutes and personally, I’d swear they’re only there to intimidate everyone else. This person may alternate their marathon t-shirt with their 200 parkrun milestone t-shirt.

2. The speedwalker. Personally I’ve never understood speed walkers, but whatever, if that’s what you enjoy. JUST MOVE OVER WITH YOUR ELBOWS. Seriously, if I end up behind one at the beginning, I just can’t get past.

3. The “speedwalker” This person likes to pretend that they’re walking with a purpose, but really they’re just out for a walk…

4. The old person. You had the perfect excuse to not have to do exercise… Some of the older people at my local parkrun are amazing, how do they do it…?

5. The motivator. This person will often go running past and says “come on, you can do it. Not far left”. I’m guilty of doing this, mostly because I then can’t walk or I will look like a hypocrite.

6. The person who drags their kids round. These kids are 5 at the most. I’m pretty sure it’s not good for their growth to be running 5km weekly. None of them look like they’re having a great time.

7. The selfie taker. The important part of parkrun for this person, is taking the selfie at the end to put on Facebook to make all their friends feel bad for not exercising.

8. All the gear and no idea. This person has all the running stuff- including headphones and a phone strap on their arm, and very expensive trainers. They go running off at the start at a crazy pace, but you overtake them by the 1mile marker because they’ve stopped and walked the rest after not long.

9. The cheater. This is someone who you know runs quite slowly, but when you get to the end, they’ve finished before you. Then when you ask how many laps they did of where, it turns out that they “didn’t realize” certain areas required more than one lap.

10. The one who doesn’t know why they’re there. I’ve been there. It seemed like a great idea on Friday evening, but you wake up on Saturday morning and just think “why the fuck did I agree to this.” But you said to your running buddies that you’d go, so you have to.

I think I’ve covered most people in this list. In all seriousness, I think parkrun is brilliant, and it’s even better that it’s free. Thank you to all the volunteers who allow it to stay that way. I think I speak for anyone who does parkrun when I say, we massively appreciate everything all the volunteers do.

I think parkrun is a really great way to get fit, everyone is really supportive, and my local parkrun in particular has a real community, we even have a Facebook group…

If you enjoyed this post, give it a like. Leave a comment if I forgot any. Follow me to see more of what I have to say. My socials are linked at the top.

AwkwardHuman