Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

It’s IRONMAN Leeds day! And what a day to behold. This was the second staging of the race since it moved over from Bolton in 2025. If you’re unfamiliar with IRONMAN, its a long-format triathlon race which means you swim 3.8km, cycle 180km, and then run a marathon. In under 17 hours or you’re out.

Except there was no swim this year. The levels of blue green algae in Waterloo Lake were significantly above threshold. There was a great deal of anger about this in the community, much of it directed at IRONMAN as an organisation. I like to bash IRONMAN as much as the next person, but this isn’t their fault. Water pollution is a massive problem in the UK and is compounded by climate breakdown. Until we, as a society, choose to tackle these issues, more swims will be cancelled.

Personally, it meant I could have a lie in as there as no swim to watch. I turned up just after lunch and had an explore of the event village with plenty of time to get comfortable before Adam Baker and Anna Lawson break the tape. Lawson ran a 2:59:22 marathon to take the win. Because it was a rolling TT start, it wasn’t clear for a long time who had actually won the race. In the end, Toby Nisbet pipped Baker by two minutes.

I took a short break for tea and then rejoined the event as it was getting dark to watch the final 50 or so athletes come in. David Neal (M70-74) was the last athlete across the line, but significantly quicker than some of the other athletes due to the TT start. It rained quite heavily for the last hour or so but it didn’t stop the party.

A lovely parkrun. It’s a three-loop course and largely flat. Busy but a possible PB course if you started at the front. Lots of nice scenery, too, as well as toilets and a cafe. This ticks off my south on the compass club challenge so I just need an east to finish it now.

Oldham parkrun takes place in Alexandra Park, Oldham. It is well worth a visit from Leeds as you can take the A672 and get some beautiful views over the Pennines.

Alexandra Park itself is lovely with toilets, a large playground, a cafe, tennis courts, lakes and lots of other interesting features. The playground and the toilets could use some love, though. The parkrun uses the slogan “like hills? Love Oldham parkrun” so I was surprised at how flat it was: three laps of mostly running from one side of the park to the other, with a hill at each end. So there are hills but nothing compared to Temple Newsam, Chevin, Middleton Woods, etc.

It is a three-lap course and there were plenty of marshals on the route. Thank you to everyone at Oldham for having us.

Isabel Trail parkrun takes place in Stafford and follows and out-and-back along the Isabel Trail. It’s mostly tarmac with some gravel bits. It’s well organised: when I turned up there was a marshal explaining where I could park. They had a megaphone for the announcements, too, but there were a few dogs that screamed the whole way through so I have no idea what was said. It was well marshalled for an out-and-back.

Isabel Trail is currently the most northerly I parkrun, which makes completing the Old MacDonald challenge a tough one for us Northerners. Luckily, I already have one I from Illaunmanagh. Still need a second E, though!

Jubilee parkrun is located in the town of Spennymoor, just over the border into County Durham. It’s a lovely park with a bowling green, two playgrounds and some sports fields. The course is four laps of the park and despite it being quite a mild slope, as each lap goes up and down twice, you end up with a lot of elevation gain from going from the bottom of the park to the top nine times.

Jubilee means I finally have my J. Just Z missing from my alphabet now. Thank you to all of the friendly volunteers for making the trip worthwhile.

North Yorkshire Water Park is an inline water park offering swimming, kayaking, paddleboarding, wakeboarding and other such activities. They also have a parkrun on a Saturday morning that involves two laps of the trail around the lake. It’s a lovely venue with toilets and a cafe offering hot cooked food.

I needed a north for the compass club challenge, adding to the west I got from Newcastle West.

Now run by the Brownlee Foundation, Ripon Triathlon takes place on Ripon race course. I have raced here before in 2022 when I did Dalesman but this was my first time back.

We decided to make a day of it, which meant getting up at the eye watering time of 4:30 to get on the road by 5:30 and there by 6:30. In the end, they did not close transition at 7:30 so I could have comfortably arrived at least 30 minutes later. Lesson for next time.

They did not announce the water temperature until just before the race so we were all nervously waiting to find out if we could wear wetsuits or not. In the end, we could. Which was great because I was pretty anxious anyway during the swim. I did some breaststroke and then felt more confident coming up to the first buoy. I then felt panicked again on the way back before finally getting into it and finishing strong.

The lake was less weedy than I remembered. But the last time I swam here it was possibly the weediest swim I’ve ever done, so the bar was pretty high.

The bike course was lovely. Very flat. Which again, contrasted with the 2,000 metres of elevation gain I had to take on last time I raced here. The course was about 24 km long and I couldn’t remember the exact distance so I wasn’t too sure when it was going to end.

Finally, onto the run. It takes a lot of the same route as Dalesman did, but without the long out-and-back stretch. I paused half way through to watch a baby hedgehog cross the road. Time well wasted in my opinion. And then it was into the finish.

My time was:

1:36:24

And my splits were:

I couldn’t quite keep up with the race winner, Alistair Brownlee, who finished in 1:01:35.

There is never a bad reason to visit Doncaster. But it is especially nice when you are there to do Sandall Park parkrun. It is two-and-a-bit laps around the park, tarmac and grass, and flat by Yorkshire standards.

This ticks off the snakes challenge for me: Skipton, Selby, Shanganagh, Sport Ireland Campus, St Anne’s, Stormont, SETU Arena, Sligo, Sheffield Castle and Sandall Park.

Every summer, thousands of runners gather in Bramham Park to take part in Endure24: a 24-hour running race where the aim is to do as many 8km laps as you can within the time limit. Participants take part as solos, pairs or teams. I did the virtual Endure24 over COVID but this was my first time at the thing itself.

I turned up on the Friday and met up with Robyn for the shake out run, which is one lap of the course. It was great to catch up and see what the course is like ahead of the race. I then went home and slept in my nice comfortable bed ready for the race starting the next day.

Back to Braham Park on Saturday to meet up with the rest of my team: Grace, Jed and Matt, to take on the race. I wouldn’t describe myself as a big outdoor person (despite all of the triathlon and adventure racing) so camping is a bit out of my comfort zone. Thanks to Matt for lending me a tent.

The race starts at noon and we each did a lap before moving to double laps. The first twelve flew by: we originally were thinking an hour per lap but having the break means you can go faster than you would on a solo ultra. All speed is relative, though, and by the end of lap eight, both Charlotte and Toby had lapped us.

By around 10 o’clock we had all done three laps each and moved onto the night laps. I had said I was going to take on more of the night shift as I wanted to run when it was cooler. It got down to about 12 degrees at night, so still a little on the warm side even in shorts and t-shirt. My mood was up-and-down at night. When I first started I was thinking maybe I’ll do even more night laps after my double but by the end my stomach was complaining and I wanted to get some sleep. So, after Matt did his night lap, we had nobody running for an hour or so. It would have been nice to do the sunrise lap but I just wasn’t up for it at the time.

In the morning, we switched back to single laps and cycled through two each, before crossing the line together.

In total, we managed 25 laps as a team. We set out as a chill team so there was no target, but everyone hit their individual target of getting six laps in (48km, making it an ultra distance) and my extra night lap took us up to 25 as a team, meaning we hit 200km overall.

After the race, we went to the Endure24 pub. The event village has a pub, cafe, several food vans, an ice cream van, a medical and sports massage tent, and some retailers. And a fire pit at night.

There were some brilliant performances to mention. Charlotte completed 23 laps, finishing first lady and second overall. Toby completed 20 laps to complete the 100 miles, and Robyn crushed 10 laps for a total of 80km at her first 24-hour event. Eleanor took second in the female pairs. Well done to everyone who took part, and thank you to my teammates for running with me.

Sheffield Castle parkrun is a proper Sheffield parkrun: hilly. My watch recorded over 100m of elevation gain. It’s difficult to know how accurate that is, but it is believable that it is hillier than both Temple Newsam and Cabo. It takes place at Manor Fields park and there is no castle. Full-size castle, I should say, as there is clearly one in the picture. Everyone was friendly and they even had water on the course during the heatwave.

This is my 9th parkrun beginning with S.