L is for Lydiard and Louise
It’s been a few weeks since my last blog letter post — having struggled to run with a winter cold/flu bug — plus the letter L has proven to be a little problematic.
More of that later, but first let me share what was a rather delightful morning just outside Swindon, in Lydiard Park.
On a blustery but mild February day, my wife Louise and I had an easy one hour drive west down the M4. The park is close by junction 16 of the motorway, and even has its own brown tourist signs to direct you to the venue. No excuses for getting lost!
We parked up in the main car park by the café, and having no cash on us — that’s so 20 century — sorted out the parking charge using the PayByPhone service. The park run team congregate by the café, whilst we waited for Louise’s sister Sara to arrive. She lives in Cirencester so this venue near Swindon was an ideal opportunity to meet up.
I have to say the Lydiard park run is an impressive venue. The course is a two lap circuit on gravel paths that takes you across and around the open park land, with the finishing straight in sight of the Grade 1 listed house, that apparently hosts a museum in the summer. Today was their event #566, which means this is the twelfth year at the venue, with a field of over 300 taking part.
The only factor given today’s weather was that the first straight was directly into a 20 mph head wind — no surprise then that on the first lap there was quite a bit of drafting behind the runner in front to try and avoid the worst of the conditions. I was guilty as charged!
I was more than happy to complete the course in just under 24 minutes, finishing second in my age group. This week has been a busy one for me exercise wise, as I have been cramming in some longer runs and strength work in the gym, in preparation for next weekend’s Wokingham Half Marathon. Legs felt fine today which is good.
It always amazes me how efficient the timings and run positioning is. I have done several marshalling jobs at my local PR and have used first hand the volunteer app to track runners as they finish.
I like to look out for what each venue does differently, and as we finished we had a short walk back to the café where the token marshals were scanning our barcodes and registering our finish time. In many other venues you just drop the finish token — mine was number #50 — into a bucket, meaning that the marshals have to manually sort them all later.
Whereas at Lydiard, they had the Harry Potter equivalent of a sorting hat, in the form of a board with hooks split out into groups of ten. And each PR finisher was encouraged to hang up their token, significantly reducing the post event sorting — genius!
And the locals that I met today were all very friendly — both Hi-Viz heroes and fellow runners:
- It started with John who did the first timers briefing. Today was his 499th event — that’s quite some achievement — who we chatted to about my alphabet challenge. I’m not sure he’s ever run outside the local county, so our story was quite a point of interest.
- The Run Director overheard our conversation, which then meant I got a shout out over the loudspeaker as part of the pre-run announcements — thank you Sir — where my red British Heart Foundation top made me recognisable to others
- A Hi-Viz park walker then told me about a 13 hour treadmill run he had done this week for BHF, where he covered the equivalent of 51 miles. That’s even more of a crazy achievement!
- Then out on the course I got chatting to a guy called Paul — easy name to remember — where we talked about all things park run and what we enjoy about participating
- And finally the couple in the car park, who initially wanted to know about my car (as they are about to buy a Hyundai Tucson), but following the run told me their story about how they are currently doing a couch to 5k running programme where park run today was their “homework”. They are approaching retirement and want to get more active — well done to both of them, you’re definitely on the right track.
Isn’t it great how inclusive park run is.
And now to share a bit of drama that happened last weekend. We had originally planned that letter L would be in Leicester, as we have friends Debbie and Pete who live just down the road. And we did stay with them on the Friday night. It was great to catch-up and be reminded that Louise and Debbie first started nurse training together at Westminster in February 1983 — this year is the 40th anniversary.
Louise and I did ‘do’ the park run on the Saturday, but sadly there was a major medical emergency on the course. Debbie — who stills works in the NHS — had mentioned that the local GP surgeries support that park run event, and so first aid help and support was immediately on hand from both marshals and participants. However, understandably, the park run was voided and when the results came out all the times were reset to 59m 59.
Driving home later that day, Louise and I decided that we would re-do the letter L — which was how we ended up at Lydiard — and I’m jolly glad we did.
So if this story resonates, then I do want to remind you that my Just Giving fund raising for British Heart Foundation is available.
And lastly, in the week of Valentines, a letter L thank you to my wife Louise.
Yes we were already together as a couple when she started nurse training all those years ago, so the relationship is long and deep. Exercise wise she has a preference for her local park run with her friends at Dinton but does join me when we are visiting friends and relations. Clearly doesn’t want to miss out on the social aspects of park run, which as today demonstrated, is such a key strength of the community.
