(picture copyright BrucieBaby)
339 people descended today on the 4th running of Vale Park parkrun, located at Port Vale Football Club with free parking next door at Synetic Solutions and bacon and sausage butties sold by the football club after the run
This is truly a parkrun in the heart of the community Spronson Park is beautiful area with all weather football and padel pitches and multi purpose areas for kids with Special Needs.
As ever when visiting parkruns, it is a shared space and it is particularly satisfying in the summer months to see these spaces packed, not only from the parkrunners and walkers but others enjoying the facilities this lovely area has to offer.
I heard about the soft launch of this event but wanted to wait a few weeks for it to bed in and also not to overwhelm the volunteers.
If you didn't realise that this was only the 4th event, you would have no idea as the Run Director Mark Taylor and his team were silky smooth in the way they ran it. The briefing was funny, welcoming with a huge focus on the first time runners, Ayodeji Olayiwole, Eve Loach, Jean Ncugi and Chloe Bailey. Looking at the times, all the first timers did so well on a warm day on a tough course. Welcome everyone and see you all next week hopefully to smash your result today.
When you set off from Port Vale you head into Spronson Park for three laps that is best described by David Tennant's Dr Who as
...up, n down n left n right and wibbly wobbly, BMX course type brilliance.
This time of year, its nice and dry, a tough hill at the start of the lap but also down fast downs to get your pacing back. Three laps but so varied it never gets boring. (May need those trail shoes in the winter)
First home today was Stockport Harrier's Andrew Davies in 17.54 followed by Mathew Morris (18.06) and Anton Kaledinskas (18.18). First two ladies were the Dixons, Lindsay (21.44) with her first run here and Melissa (22.36) followed in third by Hannah Hancock (22.53)
Its is likely that as the events goes on, the tourists will go decrease too, but this event is more than capable of hosting 300 plus runners.
Keep a look out in the Stoke Sentinel as there was a journalist here today chatting about local runners. Hopefully you can get a great write up that this fantastic event deserved
Thank you to all the volunteers, the free parking, the really nice food and absolutely lovely bit of touring to a parkrun that is going to be a massive success
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