Running - over the hills and far away

Hi folks, this is an offbeat review of two recent park runs I have completed far afield from my home run at Peter Pan Park in Hull. The first one is Wyre Forest in Shropshire, near Kidderminster, and the second is the Tewkesbury Parkrun in Gloucestershire.

So, let’s start with Wyre Forest. Unbeknown to me prior to completing the run, it is, according to the locals, one of the top 10 toughest park runs in England. Well, I can definitely vouch for it being tough, there were a lot of ups and downs. Think Tuesday Hills training without stopping and you have a good idea of the terrain. Of course, a closer study of an OS map beforehand would have told me this even if I had only looked at contour lines around the forest. But as usual, it was the closest to where I was staying so in my mind that was good enough. There was a further warning sign at the pre-run briefing when the marshal said, “Good news folks, we don’t run up cardiac hill anymore but (there’s always a but!) the course is mostly downhill………. for the first bit!” And then he said, “The second half has few minor inclines with a sting in the tail uphill finish! Enjoy your run”! He was both right and wrong. For a lad from Hull his definition and my definition of “minor inclines” differ somewhat. These were hills, no denying it!

So, I got through it by taking it easy on the downhills to conserve some energy and yes, the hills came, and I managed to get up them reasonably well. I imagined Tom and Steve encouraging me and that certainly helped. Did I mention the heat? The course pre-brief said something about it being warm in the forest. Another understatement. It was downright mafting! (Translation – it was very hot). Anyway, I did the run trying to keep up with two first timers – they left me on the hills and then two similarly aged gents from a local club. They left me too!  I did manage to finish in front of a young lad who kept walking and passing me once he had got his breath back which made me feel better. My time was 39:18, which given the terrain and heat, I was very happy with. I went to the forest café to recover with a coffee and hot buttered scone and jam – delicious. After that, I could speak and walk comfortably feeling a lot better. An interesting run with its fair share of challenging bits. Would I do it again? Yes! Would I do another forest run? Definitely!

 

The second run was in Tewkesbury with a backdrop of Tewkesbury Abbey at the other side of the river. This was described as “an undulating course of 4 laps through luscious parkland, by a river and finally around a rugby pitch to a slight downhill finish”. It was an accurate description and the inclines this time were short and sharp. Just enough to know you were going uphill but not enough to make you want to stop. Oh, yes, you did read that right at the beginning it was 4 (four) laps. Naturally my first thought was how am I going to count 4 laps given I have been known to mess up at Peter Pan. I decided just to keep two or three runners in sight, follow them and do my best to remember how many times I passed the second to last marshal. As we were going round two youngsters named him “the disco dog marshal”! He had tied his dog up to a nearby bush, tuned his radio to some loud music and was rocking each time we passed. A real memory jogger!

Anyway, I got talking with a young woman who caught up with me and asked where I was from. Turns out she was out running for the first time since having her baby six months ago. She doubted she could do the 4 laps so was going to walk or stop after lap 3. I encouraged her to run with me and see how she felt at the end of this lap. As we got near to the start of the 4^th and last lap, her husband joined us and so we ran on together for a while. Inevitably my pace began to fade so they went off in front of me. By this time there was about five different people in a little bubble all trying to get to the front. I was second in this bubble until the very last bend when the bloke behind who had been really struggling to keep up, suddenly found some pace and shot off downhill to the finish. I followed him as best I could and finished in 104^th place with the woman mentioned above leading all five of us to the finish line. I think there was about 12 seconds or so separating us. An exciting finish in a time of 33:27 for me. I was very pleased with that!

So as you can see, these were two very different experiences and oddly enough despite the exciting finish in Tewkesbury, I think I actually preferred the more challenging circular circuit at Wyre Forest. The best bit for me was the absence of laps to count down. Running and counting laps is never a good thing in my opinion. No wonder I struggle at Peter Pan!

After eight tourist park runs, I would say it is certainly worth the effort and there’s no accounting for what you may find or whom you might end up running with. Much as I like the local park runs, the variety of runs out there is both challenging and entertaining. I wonder where my next tourist outing will be. I have quite a few letters of the alphabet to chase so it’s a case of have running shoes, will travel!

And on that subject, it’s great to see Claire and Jo taking on the mantle of tourism organisers, I will definitely be joining them when I can. Anyone need a lift?

 

Mike Gill

Erstwhile park run tourist, August 2022.