09/02/20 – What Have I Dune to Deserve This?
Back in the UK and Back into the Teeth of Winter.
We’ve barely had time to get over jetlag and we are off on our travels again. Palace playing away at Everton at the unreasonable time for 12.30pm had forced our hand. Despite only getting back 36 hours before, we were heading out again.
On Friday, Sue had a meet up with her Charity: Bowel Cancer UK and her fellow London Marathon runners, for a day session exchanging fundraising tips, training ideas and general familiarisation with the London Marathon. I’ll let her tell you about that.
After collecting her enroute, we headed up to Crosby on Merseyside for parkrun. Having found a very parkrun friendly B&B on the front, we turned in for an early night having set all sorts of alarms, fearing jetlag might prevent us from waking in time.
We need not have worried – we were wide awake at seven and decided to head off early. Good job we did too, as it was a further walk than we thought and the sand had been blown into dunes right across the cycle path requiring a detour onto the beach with a fast approaching tide. I remember saying to Sue: ‘It’s a bloody good job we won’t be running along there!’
Crosby beach is best known for it’s art installation – Another Place by Anthony Gormley – 100 Cast-Iron figures strung out across the beach. It’s an eerie feeling, when you first catch a glimpse of one. The parkrun normally starts right by the one affectionately known as ‘Bing’. However, the tide meant it was going to be run in reverse today with one or two course tweaks – not an unusual occurence here, we were informed by the friendly locals.
Spying a couple of Palace shirts in attendance boosted our spirits against the cold and the oncoming Storm Ciara, that was due to start battering the West Coast in a mere couple of hours. Soon we off towards the Lifeguard station over some particularly uneven ground, which made for a slow pace. Not exactly what the Doctor ordered for my hurty hip.
As we heading down from the grass onto the Prom, we crossed over the middle of a roundabout. A parkrun first for us – indeed I can’t think of another parkrun with this unusual feature. The pictures from Crosby’s Twitter feed below, show both the roundabout what what it looked like once the Storm hit!
Shortly after the U-Turn, another parkrun first for us. Getting hit by seaspray as the waves slapped against the prom. The video below gives you some idea of what we were up against. If you know where to look you can even spot Sue – just don’t blink!
A sneaky look at the watch confirmed that despite the rough going and sogginess, I was actually close to my best parkrun time time for this year. Not saying much with my injury, I know, but a positive step in the right direction. However, the biggest challenge was yet to come in the final mile.
Remember those dunes from the walk up? Well, they WERE part of the route, after all. The glute was in full-on protest mode now, as I struggled up and over those soft sand-drifts – some of which were almost as tall as me! I wish I’d had my camera with me to capture this most extraordinary sight.
UPDATE: A month later, I came across this little video clip of people still struggling up and down the dunes.
The sight of the turn for the finish line was one of the most sights of my parkrun experience. Needless to say, the time went from being quite decent for the year to very slow (36:55). Not even close to that final elusive bingo number, this week either.
It would have been so good to have completed the Bingo challenge in Crosby!
Thanks to Crosby parkrun Twitter feed.