My name is Nicola Forwood and I am a parkrun tourist!

My first taste of parkrun tourism was at Coventry parkrun. This was 2 ½ years after my first run at Leeds! My PhD is in chemistry but I desperately needed a set of biological data so arranged a 2 week placement at The University of Warwick so that I could work with my collaborator on in microbiology. As I was there over the weekends I figured I’d check if there was a parkrun nearby…..and there was! Ben came down to visit me at the weekend and we went over to Coventry parkrun; it was great. A lovely course on a bright sunny day, we had ice-creams and stayed in the park until the afternoon. Ahhhhhhh parkrun life!

          Six months later we were visiting friends in Solihull and I knew there was a parkrun nearby. I suggested it and everyone seemed keen. Many beers later and enthusiasm was weaning but I’m proud to say that the girls got up and ran whilst the lazy boys stayed in bed! Ben still hasn’t run Brueton! The course was lovely but the beers were not and I struggled round this one with NO SPRINT FINISH! My friend who I ran with (Clare-who I am usually faster than) beat me easily, I just ran round regretting having the curry the night before :/ still, another parkrun done!

          I’ve been annoyed for ages that whenever I went back to Norwich there wasn’t a parkrun and I missed out, especially when I was close to the 50 club, I HATED missing them and normally over Christmas this meant missing several weeks. This was frustrating; after all, there are only so many weeks in a year! On my hen-do I made everyone run Leeds parkrun, including my sister Carla. She’d never run a parkrun before but had heard about if from me and knew that mum had run it with me before. Carla loved it; she went on to set up Norwich parkrun where she is one of the race-directors so my next parkrun event was of course Norwich. Now I can parkrun whenever I’m in Norwich visiting family-hooray!

          I couldn’t resist trying out a new parkrun when I was down in London for the VLM. People told me I was mad to parkrun the day before my first marathon but I knew I wasn’t. I wanted to get 10 different events under my belt and make it onto the ‘Most Events’ leader-board so I wanted to do it. I knew there were loads of variables I couldn’t control when running a marathon and I would just try to reach my marathon goal but there was no way I was passing up the chance to do a London parkrun which would be event number 5 and I’d be halfway to my goal of getting on the leader-board. Ben and I met mum at Wimbledon. It was great, hash markings (rather than marshals and signposts) and running through the woods, totally different from any others I’d run, I loved it!

          The next was handed to me on a plate. Roundhay was set up (yes Leeds now had TWO parkruns!). I ran Roundhay event number 3 but it’s a tough course with an uphill finish which ruined my favourite bit. My sprint finish was MUCH less satisfying when going uphill! Not my cup of tea but a great bunch and a beautiful park.

          Now that I had 6 different events under my belt I made a bit of an effort to go to other parkruns and Bradford was next on my list. Ben didn’t want to get up early so off I went on my own and drove over to Bradford. I loved this course; the hill is short and steep and the rest of the course feels like running downhill which I love. The marshals were FANTASTIC and I really enjoyed it. This was the first time I felt like a proper parkrun tourist.

          Pontefract event number 3 was next. With sunshine, beautiful ducklings and little fluffy cygnets I was sold. This was my favourite. I convinced some friends to come the following week “it’s so beautiful, you’ll love it” I said……famous last words! The next week it rained SO hard and was windy too which made the rain horizontal. I had no cap and no waterproof mascara and this was my worst parkrun! The rain was so hard you could barely see where you were putting your feet. How quickly things can change! Still they enjoyed it and Andrew and I sprinted to the line, I think he JUST beat me but it was pretty close to call!

          We were running the GNR so there was no way we were missing Newcastle parkrun. We set off super early that morning to make it for 9am to run through the puddles and cow pats! The highlight of this parkrun was the coffee afterwards. A group of HPH’s had run (me, Ben, Jaz, Tess, Linda and Tom) and we were keen for post-race coffee, but the park café was closed and so it was just us. Tom used his fancy phone to try to locate a café and took us on a massive long walk in circles, while we all pointed out streets we thought we should go down (turned out if we had of picked one of our streets we would have been there in seconds!). The score of ‘Girls & sense of direction’ VS ‘Tom & his fancy phone’ definitely ended up being 1-0 to us! ;) but we made it and had a good old chat about parkrun. Good times and also this was event number 9! Only one more to go!

          Leeds parkrunners like to go on tour every now and then and Les had suggested we try out his home parkrun, Hull. Hull is quite an easy parkrun to sell, great course (PB material), great café and even LLAMAS AND WALLABIES!!! We had a GREAT day being children again. After parkrun (and the best parkrun café breakfast I’ve had to date; veggie sausage buttie-Mmmmmmmm) we went to see all the animals, played on the outdoor gym and there were even musical sculptures to play with! A GREAT day indeed. More importantly that was the first time I met professional parkrun tourist Steve Darby. Steve had posted on the HPH page offering lifts to Hull so me, Ben and Brenda all gratefully accepted (we didn’t really know who he was and thought he was a HPH that we hadn’t met yet). Turned out that he wasn’t in a running club but was an honorary HPH (I’m not sure how?! Maybe by just being a great runner, we’re keen to claim those! Although Steve has since joined another running club…..Booooooo!). Anyway, Steve is right up there on the ‘Most Events’ leader-board and is a parkrun fanatic and has since been responsible for introducing me to Princes parkrun (run with a very hungover Vicki Taylor!), Durham parkrun and Gorleston parkrun (I’ll credit Steve with that one as he was running Norwich Half and staying in Yarmouth so I thought I’d head over and check it out too, although due to car troubles Steve only made this one by the skin of his teeth!). 

          I’ve also run Sheffield Endcliffe Park while visiting friends, and I went over to Huddersfield with mum as I wanted to race the ‘Huddersfield parkrun Bunny’. Luckily for me they had a slower bunny that day and I managed to beat it! HOORAY!!! The only other parkrun I’ve done is Concord which was amazing. For some reason they don’t get many runners so this was my best finishing position ever! I biked to Leeds train station, got an early train and then biked from Meadowhall to Concord (which, I would like to warn anyone thinking of doing the same, is ALL uphill and a hard few miles to bike!). I arrived knackered and just as I locked up my bike I spotted Chris and Liz Jones getting out of their car! Thanks for the lift guys! ;) Actually it was great seeing them there as Chris won which was fantastic and I finished 14^th!!!!!!!  

We drove from Norwich to Leeds today (for New Years Eve in Leeds) and managed to fit in King’s Lynn parkrun which means I’ve now run 17 different parkruns. Liz and Chris Jones are creeping up behind me in the ‘Most Events’ table (they’re on 14) and I still have a way to go to catch Andrew Nicholls (24). Ben is now firmly on the leader-board with 11 so he’s hot on the heels of Liz & Chris! My dream is to get above Steve Darby but he’s so far ahead (59!) I can’t see this happening until he retires from running and judging by his current form I am in for an extremely long wait!

The post-race fruit at King’s Lynn today was offered with an excellent thought; detox now as we’ll be getting wasted later! Well I for one will raise my glass and say to you all “here’s to a great 2012 full of parkrunning!”