Race Report (nearly) - Colwick parkrun - Freedom Run

In Nottingham for the weekend, I went with my friends Sophie and Liz to Colwick park for the parkrun there. It's a young parkrun, this being event 7, and numbers are still relatively low.Unfortunately, partly due to our tardiness but also to unclear directions on the event website, we arrived at the wrong end of the park. After wandering through the maze of paths looking for a crowd of runners we found some volunteers at the finish funnel, only after most of the field had passed us in the woods. After a chat with them, we decided to go to the start and join in anyway, reasoning that despite starting 20 minutes late we'd still finish ahead of some walkers who were expected to take around an hour.

As it turned out, we then couldn't find the start, because there was no-one there of course and there are no markings. We set off anyway, from about the right place as it turned out.

I jogged along with Liz for a little way, then decided that I should at least get a decent workout so ran on ahead. I was soon up to around threshold pace, and kept this up to the finish. I didn't sprint for the finish.

The route is, like most parkruns, very pleasant. It's also virtually flat, but the surface is rather variable and there's a very tight turn to be negotiated twice. I think it should be fairly fast, but not a PB course if like me you're used to the likes of Cannon Hill or Brueton parkruns.

Liz and I both decided not to take an official time, so didn't enter the finish funnel, but my Garmin showed 20:57.

In the end I logged the run as my first parkrun 'freedom run'.

Colwick are getting the same sort of numbers as we did when we first started Cannon Hill parkrun. What surprised me was that Colwick felt really low key, as though it was just a few friends out for a run, while at Cannon Hill, I guess because we were more involved with the organisation, felt rather more stressful!

The volunteers were really friendly and chatty, just like parkrun volunteers everywhere, it seems. They have a regular walking group who have taken part every week and the volunteers are happy to hang around until everyone has finished, which has been over an hour most weeks, and over 80 minutes on one occasion. So, well done and thanks to the volunteers.