Parkrun: is it over for me? 😔

After this last weekend's failure to attend a parkrun, I'm now into my longest ever absence from it since I began parkrunning. I've now missed the last 6 (SIX) Saturdays. 🙁

The majority of these were missed out of compassion for the family. Me disappearing shortly after 8am on a Saturday morning means someone (who's not me) has to give up their much needed lie-in to keep an eye on the kids. Of course, this has always been the case since I started parkrun, but now that I'm no longer pushing for a parkrun attendance-related goal, I see how much of an impact I was having previously. And how selfish I'd been.

Sooo... maybe parkruns just aren't for me right now. The timing's just not convenient. As much as I miss the impetus it gave me to get up and the focus it gave my midweek runs, I might have to look for that challenge elsewhere. At which point it'll be a lot more on me to be disciplined, which is something I'm a bit rubbish at. But at least I am still running midweek.

This coming weekend will continue the not-parkrunning trend too, as we're off to visit the in-laws again (my suggestion, actually). There's a chance Saturday 17th could see me back to it, though. And I'd love to do either South Shields or Chopwell Wood again, even if I was keeping the latter for my 50th run. Speaking of which, it's been so long that I've completely lost track of how many parkruns I've done. All I know is it's less than 50.

One upside of this last weekend, however, was that I did at least manage to get to a parkrun course. I'd half-planned to run at Chopwell Wood, but instead ended up going with Daughter the 2nd and walking half of the route shortly before sundown. 🥰

Looking back down the first hill on the parkrun course

It even provided an opportunity to break in the Brooks Cascadias a bit more too. And while it might not have been strenuous exercise, by god, it was "like oil on the soul," to quote Heinz-Harald Frentzen. 👌

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