A Compendium of 5 km Runs

Note: many pictures here - click on one to view the slideshow.

23 December 2023 - Wythenshawe parkrun #552

Some 270 walkers and runners, plus many more marshals, assembled at Wythenshawe Park for their annual Christmas Dress run. My old tree was extricated from a bag in a wardrobe.

Posing before the start

Today's Run Director is... a reindeer...

Looking back before the start to slower runners and barking dogs

Run Director - Alan the Reindeer

It's the 'Flag and Sandcastle' route; turn left at the top of the flagpole

It's amazing how quickly the runners get spread out

Andy was Owen's Guardian Angel today

There's a short part of the course where you meet those going faster/slower than you 

The route goes in the opposite direction to the normal one

Sue stopped for a chat with legendary marshal Sam McGrath
(she had finished and came back to meet me)

The leader, Edward Lord, came flying past, lapping me before I'd got very far at all!

This lot of stalwarts were taking their time

A smiley, but chilly, marshal

Andy W cheekily nipped past Sue at the finish

Edyta and Charlie were well ahead of me

There were 'milestone goodies' at the finish

Andy and Owen were joined by Jan for their race to the line

Here's another well known marshal - one of the Terrible Twins

Paul was first into the cafe, and with Rufus left at home he won't be thrown out today 

unless there's an aversion to elves as well as dogs

It's a shame that dogs are not allowed in, and other silly rules apply to the cafe, who to be fair were well mannered on this occasion, providing great scones, with jam and cream, and mince pies, all free of charge. But gone are the days when most of the runners trooped into the cafe for pre-ordered bacon or sausage rolls, etc.

After a while, a reindeer appeared after the last person had finished, and dumped 270 barcode token on our table, to be sorted and re-threaded in order. Andy pretended they were playing cards and got half way through a game of solitaire before realising it wasn't working!

Paul and Jeanette were very studious, and second cups of coffee were required to enable us to get through this arduous task

So that was event number 552, and a successful run up to Christmas. Full results are here, for what they are worth - no records were broken.

24 December 2023 - Wythenshawe Community Run

With our usual master of ceremonies, Paul, away sunning himself on a foreign beach, the management (Paul) had left a top team in charge of the regular Sunday morning 5 km Community Run.

What the top team didn't know was that Paul seemed to have invited all his friends and relations. I realised that something was up when I arrived in plenty of time and found the car park to be full. To cut a long story short, it's pleasing if the attendance is close to 100; today it was 265.

Alison bravely raised her voice for a briefing

And we are off, around the running track - the youngsters love that bit

Soon we are zooming through the woods

Most folk turned around after 1 km, including these ladies who are regulars on the local running scene

There was quite a long queue to register having finished.
At this point I still had a lap of the running track before joining said queue

I was keeping pace with Anna and Laurence, before they went ahead

Alison & co were studiously recording every finisher. Well done to them. Naming everyone in the results became a little tricky, so everyone was also designated a festive name, for avoidance of doubt. I was down as 'Garland Grottomilk'

 

The Cordingleys were out in force today

I even made it to being an 'Honorary Cordingley'. Wow!

There's more on the Community Run here on Facebook, and on their website here.

25 December 2023 - Alderley Park parkrun #75

A half hour drive took us to Alderley Park, for our second go at this excellent undulating run through pleasant woodland. Not all parkruns operate on Bank Holidays, so a number of us from Wythenshawe met up amongst 184 participants here on Christmas morning.

Zoe, Sue, Cary, Jeanette, Greg, Freddie, Alan, Alice and Alice's mum, 

and there were others away warming up

We gathered at the start, but where I was I didn't notice that we had 'set off'

Pictures were taken by various people at the finish

Laura was first lady home, in 20:02. Well done to her...

Barcode sorting: they have a system; I wonder how many tokens go astray?

Bye Freddie: bye Rufus, and let's all go and have lots of food and drink, after all that exercise!

Well, that was a nice outing. Full results are here.

Now let's go and enjoy our Christmas Dinners. (See next posting.)