The one with a statue and a wedding!

The Easter holidays have started.  The six members of the family who are involved in education are all officially on holiday!  The seventh member of the family is NOT on holiday.  To celebrate the start of the holidays the family member not on holiday decided that a book fair in Bath was a good idea and, in a moment of madness, I said I'd go too.  I like Bath and I haven't been there for a while.  What I hadn't factored in was that we would be leaving home at 5 am.  FIVE AM!   To be fair, all I had to do was fall out of bed, then into the car and I slept all the way there, but still FIVE AM!  In the holidays - madness.

After unloading a car load of book at the Assembly Rooms I headed off to find a parkrun.  I'd run at Bath Skyline a couple of times, so thought that a bit of variety was called for... the choice was between Southwick Country Park and Pomphrey Hill, and as one of those has 'hill' in the title I decided to go to Southwick.  In my haste to get dressed I had put together a natty ensemble of my 250 top and the peacock leggings I should have worn at the Larmer Tree Marathon.  This winning combination proved quite a talking point.  I had several people ask if I'd done Larmer - because there can be no other reason for buying peacock leggings, and many comments about my 250 shirt.  That was quite a novelty, I think that in Hampshire/Surrey/London we see so many of them that we begin to forget that it takes quite a long time to earn one!

Anyway, to the run.  It was a special one today.  Two parkrun regulars were getting married.  The happy couple ran the first lap, then jumped into a car, along with friends and supporters, to go to the local register office, got married and then came back to run a freedom parkrun before retiring to the cafe for cake and celebrations.   Congratulations to Sarah & James!  

The course is two and three quarter laps, all on nice firm gravelly paths, I can imagine they get a bit puddly in the wet weather but this morning they were nice and dry - my trail shoes were not needed.  It was fairly flat, just 108ft of elevation, a welcome change from Alice Holt parkrun, with a downhill to the finish.  Because I am running like a pregnant donkey at the moment and a three legged one at that, I decided that I'd take it easy and just keep the 26 minute pacer in my sight. I kept pace with him most of the way, asking him where the statue I'd heard so much about was (I'd just run past it!), before deciding that the legs needed a wee bit of a stretch as I approached the finish.

This was a lovely, friendly, parkrun.  I didn't go to the cafe afterwards as I had to get back to Bath but I have no doubt that much fun would have been had there too!