Funnell Duckers, Double Crossers and the Best Barms in parkrun
World
13 April 2024
Pennington Flash
Lordy, I love parkrun.
After last week’s fantastic
cross country at Clarence parkrun, it was onto the (albeit only slightly) drier
jaunt round the stunning ground of Pennington Flash.
The best thing about the
fabulous concept that is parkrun is that they come in all shapes and sizes,
from the beautiful wonder that is Lyme Park, to the flatness of Bryn Bach
and the glory of the real home of parkrun, Woodbank.
No matter where you go in
parkrunland, you’ll find the same thing, genuinely great people out running in
beautiful places supported by those people even better, the glorious
volunteers. None more so than at Penny Flash.
One of the issues sometimes in
being a parkrun tourist is turning up a new parkrun, parking up and not
knowing where the start is or sometimes even the place itself. (I’m too lazy to
do research). Not so here. They had something I’ve never seen
before in the 45 different parkruns I’ve ran at…. a parking marshal
! He was great, really friendly, explained where the start was, how you
pay for your parking (in the golf bit of the café ) and all about the
run.
No sooner had I began to make
my way over to start another chap came over to me and started to chat.
Again, one of the things I love about parkrun is meeting people from all walks
of life. Doesn’t matter what you do for a living, at parkrun, everyone is
the same. It’s great, talking about shared experiences of different runs, the
good, the bad, hearing about new parkruns. Even heard talk about
‘bringing back the hats’ (at least that’s what I think was said)
One tip, you do need to arrive
at the very latest 10 minutes or so before the start as there’s a good 5
minutes or so walk to the start.
Once you get there, you meet
the rest of the volunteers who make a play for being some of nicest,
friendliest bunch of people I’ve come across. In a pretty stacked field,
that takes some going.
The first timers briefing was
very warm, massive congratulations to
the two 1st timer parkrunning athletes, Maggie and Rachel
who smashed it out of the park. You two have to come back next
week, you’ve got a PB to chase !
Then it was onto the RD
Jonathan Dobson’s welcome brief. I was hoping for a chat with him before
the run (caught up with him after) but he was fascinating to watch. This
was a man very much on top of his brief, he ran his team like clockwork.
It’s so easy to take for granted how much work goes into RD’ing an event.
There’s so many balls you have to keep juggling in the air, he was a master at
it.
He made all the usual
announcements with the warnings and ‘funnel duckers and double crossers’ had me
giggling at random parts of the run
130 of us set off on a three
lap course. Now I don’t normally like three lappers and I have to admit
it was one of the reasons I’ve taken a while to come here. I can only say
this, please don’t make the same mistake. The course, at the moment, is
so much fun. Big puddles of water, glorious sploshes of mud, short but
naughty up hills and a great down hill at the end of every lap with a really
fast finish……All I can say it is places high on the Clarencebox parkrun index
of awesomeness if only for the marshals shouts of ‘embrace the water’ on the
way round.
I love sausage and egg baps
(I’m from the South Wales Valleys and that it definitely the
right way to describe them) and I’ve sampled many across the country of
ours. There may be some debate about parkruns and It’s probably illegal
to have a favourite, but Jimminy Cricket, the sausage and egg baps here and by
far and away, the best I’ve had anywhere. (You even have a hot bap to go
with it !)
I had so much fun this morning,
loved the location, loved the people, loved the run, really loved
the food and the coffee.
Stay cool Penny Flash
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