Dennis Holmes reports
A combination of arctic weather and the County Cross Country Championships which is quite unfortunate for those competitive types who like running around in vests meant a much reduced number at parkrun on the first Saturday of the new year. So far only 10 participants have come to light.
Kicking us off at Ashbourne parkrun was young Misha with a fantastic time of 23.46 for a 32nd place finish.
Roy Austin, minus his better half made the short trip to Brierley Forest which has been known to get a bit icy but on this occasion beat the dreaded cancellation. Roy navigated himself around safely in a time of 28.15 for 122nd place.
Still “Up North”, Andrew Donoher and Jill Neville made there way to Hartlepool parkrun where Andrew ran a speedy 21.52 for 17th place and Jill also ran a pretty swift time of 26.05 finishing in 46th.
Also up North but not quite so far, Sarah Witham took plan B and ran at Marshall Drive parkrun bagging another 1st lady finisher in a time of 25.28 for 10th place overall.
Malcolm Betts stayed local at the reliable single lap course at Rother Valley Country park where he finished in a time of 27.59 for 260th position.
Venue of the day was to be the hilly Shipley Country park course where our trio of quinquagenarian’s took on the hill and had fine perfomances led home by Dan Ashcroft in 41st place in a swift 23.25, followed by Gav Elliott in 94th place in 26.45 and finished off by Lisa Walton in 165th place in 29.19.
Last but not least (so far), Dennis Holmes was on the last leg of his antipodean sojourn, taking part at the You Yangs National Park parkrun near Melbourne, Australia where due to some typically Australian relaxed course management, most of the field ahead of Dennis went wrong thereby allowing him to claim 5th place (1st age graded) and with a 25.53 finish time, only 36 seconds off his first ever First Finisher place. Oh, what so could have been!
