“Fun Fact: The last time every human was on the planet was 31 October 2000. Since then at least 1 person has been in space so if you were born after that date, you have never had a day when every person was on earth” – Hannah Fry
Good morning lovely Dashers. I hope that you had a splendid, if somewhat soggy, weekend. Hopefully those of you who attended the Radio 2 Concert in the Park managed to stay relatively dry and enjoyed the show. The pictures looked great.
A short and sweet report this week as parkrunner numbers were lower than usual. I’m not sure if we had any Great North Runners (many congratulations if so) or whether holidays were in full flow this week but I’m sure that we will be back out in force next week. I must try and run the GNR again at some point; my last attempt was a few years back and was slightly demoralising when I was overtaken in a sprint finish by a womble! No parkrun for me this week either; my mother-in-law decided to be admitted to hospital which curtailed running plans – deeply inconsiderate of her to be honest (she will be fine btw so I’ve told her to avoid Saturdays in future!)
We did, however, have 13 wonderful Dashers covering 8 different parkrun venues with John Randall travelling the furthest to be ‘prima volta’ at Milano Nord this week. We had 3 other first-time visitors and magnificent Top-10 finishes accomplished by Brian Shaw (of course) who was 2nd at Burnley, Diane Dudgeon (an excellent 3rd at Widnes) and a welcome return for Andy Smith who scorched round in 6th place at Worden on his first visit there. And huge congratulations this week go to Steve Whitehead who smashed his PB at Clarence. Great stuff!
Despite continued excellence this week, there was no change in either of the Championship tables. Only 3 ladies ran this week and, although all 3 performed superbly (Julie Smith obviously benefiting from cycling over Alps by posting her second best score of the year), the top 3 remains unchanged with Linda Coffey, Jacqueline Shaw and Diane Dudgeon leading the way.
In the Men’s Championship, Brian Shaw extended his lead over Simon Smith slightly with another strong run with Jez Turner holding onto 3rd place by only 0.6% from Andy Smith. It’s great to see both tables continuing to be so competitive at this stage of the season.
I’m aware that Lytham Hall is cancelled this Saturday but I don’t know of any other local events with the same fate so hopefully there will be plenty of parkruns to choose from. Weather, mother-in-laws and good health permitting, I hope that you have a great week and of course, happy park running!