Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Still chasing down some Ses for the snakes challenge. This one was number seven. Lovely parkrun. Four laps of the sports field, so not too exciting there, but the volunteers were lovely, it was fairly flat and they had a nice cafe with toilets in the leisure centre so there nice to hang out after the run.

Every year, Blackrock Atheletics organises a run down to Teddy’s ice cream in Dún Laoghaire and the club buys everyone an ice cream. This year, I finally made it! Thank you to Gerry for organising.

It’s a parkrun. On a beach. You literally run ip the beach for two and a half kilomtres and then turn around and run back down again. It’s amazing.

The surface is surprisingly good. The sand is hard so you do not get the exhaustion of running on soft sand. It is probably not a PB course, but it’s not difficult going, either. There are a few streams to jump over and some seaweed to dodge which is all part of the fun.

It was raining heavily the day I went and continued to rain throughout the entire run. None of that killed the fun for me. No chance of sunburn, exhaustion or dehydration. It was beautiful. Where else would you want to be on a rainy Saturday morning?

Except you cannot be here every Saturday. One of the quirks of the events is that they can only run the event at low tide so it only takes place around half of the time. It is well worth the trip if you can make it, though. This is a contender for my favourite parkrun.

Lovely parkrun. I received a warm welcome at the gate and after the run, where they provide a spread of biscuits and hot and cold drinks. It is three laps around the park and has a few lumps but no serious hills. Thank you to all of the volunteers for a pleasant morning.

2025 marked the fifth outing of Around The Park, Around The Clock: an event that involves running three laps of Woodhouse Moor (approximately 5km) every hour for 12 hours.

We have had a range of weathers over the years and this year was mostly good. Last year was rainy all day while 2023 was glorious sunshine. This year was mostly dry but with some heavy rain around the 2pm loop. This meant lots of people joining us for the morning loops, one of which had around 40 of us, and a quieter afternoon.

I had a rough time last year, both at ATP ATC and in life generally. No such problems this year, thankfully. I did some some stomach issues for the last two hours but nothing serious. it was hard going, running wise, though. I really felt tired for some of the middle loops and that never really got much easier despite the introduction of caffeine. But all good fun.

A big thank you to Toby for organising it, Andy for watching the bags all day, and everyone else who turned up to mind base camp and cheer. Also to everyone I ran a loop with, especially Robyn as we took in most of the loops together and had a lovely catch-up.

Pontefract parkrun takes place on the race course. It features one loop around the race course track and two laps around the lake. All fairly flat. Thank you to all of the volunteers for making it happen.

On Saturday, I ticked off my first parkrun in the compass club. It’s a lovely small parkrun with friendly volunteers and a three lap course around the castle demesne which was lovely and shaded by the trees.

I ran the Sandyford 5k last year but this time I did it as one of the Cabinteely Hill Harriers teams. This year, I was significantly faster, completing the course in 22:33 so happy with that. No prizes for me personally but plenty for the club.

You need ten parkruns beginning with the letter S to complete the snakes challenge. That is a lot of Ss. Stormont was my sixth. It is a well attended event that takes in two laps of the Stormont Estate with the start and finish on Prince of Wales Avenue looking up at the parliament building. Thank you to all of the volunteers for making the event happen.

Leeds United confirmed their promotion a few weeks ago, but clinched the Championship title on Saturday. They finished with six wins in a row. Let’s hope that serves us well in the Premier League next season.