Y is for York and yo-yoing course plans
The finishing straight of the Alphabet Challenge is in sight as the penultimate letter took us on a weekend away trip to York, and it was a good excuse to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We travelled on the Friday for a four hour drive north to the historic city. The Romans knew it as Eboracum, the Saxons it was Eoforwick and the Vikings called it Jorvik. This we found out on a leisurely afternoon river cruise on the Ouse.
We used hotel reward points to stay at the Marriott hotel that literally backs out onto the racecourse, meaning we were in good position for the York park run. And to fuel us on the Friday evening we went a local Italian restaurant called Buongiorno, that we found as it is #1 rated on Trip Advisor. We were lucky to have booked the last table available, and it didn’t disappoint. The food and service were fantastic.
We had holidayed in Sardinia earlier this month, and the owner was originally from the island and has created a real little piece of his homeland in a local shopping precinct in York. An excellent find for our celebratory 36th wedding anniversary meal.
The Saturday morning dawned warm and muggy as we decided to move the car to the far side of the racecourse where the event was taking place. There had been plenty of advance notice that as the annual York cycle rally was taking place the course would be an alternative routing.
Well plan B had turned into plan C as we parked up and saw a group of other PR runners walking towards us. The intended location was being used as an overflow car park for the local car boot sale. Luckily the race course is a large expanse of land and so a third area was available as a pop-up run event location. The cones were marked out and measured to ensure four laps would be the required 5km distance — I later found out from Louise’s Strava that it was within 50 metres of the target which is well within the margin of error of these apps in measuring distance.
But who would be a RD on a day when you literally have to reschedule everything within half an hour of the event start? Well done Jane and team — you pulled it off — and avoided a last minute cancellation.
And so the park run congregation of 400 runners made its way across the racecourse to the impromptu start area, with 10 minutes allowed as extra time for locals who had to re-route to the new location. More time for chatting to the various tourist groups and locals, where we learnt about one tourist who admitted she is only really here for the shopping — cue the banter about finding the nearest PRs to discount shopping malls. And a local who told us that the adjacent Tyburn area is infamous for being a public gallows in the 16th to 18th centuries.
So at 9.10am we started on an anti-clockwise loop across the infield of the racecourse, moving cone to cone across the grass. Yes it was a summer trail run, which made it a good test of stamina as we completed the four tours of the field. I crossed the finish line in position 97, in just over 24 minutes, fifth in age group. Nothing shabby in that.
I walked back to my bag for a welcome drink and watched as a really enthusiastic supporter called Darren (known to his friends as DGB) was encouraging finishers on the final straight — which was the only piece of tarmac used. I waited to see Louise complete her fourth lap, and greeted her with her water bottle and a towel to dry off.
And a shout out to the Redway Runners, in particular one runner who completed the undulating off road terrain pushing a buggie. I hope her team mates took it in turns and helped out!
And the best finishing photo of the day is the young boy who accompanied Dad on the tarmac, as a triathlete coach his cycling skills were a joy to see.
And for today roll call there were no runners whose names started with the letter Y — so today’s gold medals goes to the local running club York Knavesmire Harriers (with 24 runners) with silver medals to York Acorn RC with 8 runners.
And like every PR it is the volunteers — who were cheerful throughout despite the last minute yo-yoing of course plans — who make the event happen. So thank you to Alex, David B, Catherine, Aoife, Hilary, Matthew C, Ben, Ian, Debbie, Emma, John, Matthew F, Nicola, Richard, Linda, Lewis, George, Aura Cecilia, Jane, David M, Stephen, Liz, Chris, Emyr, Fiona, Patricia, Deirdre, Brian, Oliver and Aaron.
And best of all we made it back to the hotel, to shower and stretch, comfortably in time for breakfast — or more to the point ‘brunch’. We sat at a table next to another couple of park runners and shared tales of where we had been to (in completing the Alphabet) and which overseas countries had been visited. The stories of Scandinavia sounded amazing, but that is something that will have to wait. For me the letter Z is the task in hand, which will be in Holland in two weeks time.
That means not long is left to complete the fundraising. I am close to breaking the £1,000 barrier for British Heart Foundation — which would be an amazing outcome — and a fitting tribute in memory of my father-in-law Ken. With your donations via this link we are a tiny bit closer to diagnosing and treating heart disease to the benefits of us all.
