parkrun #51: Valentines

I made two great discoveries this week:

1. East London has some very large ducks. Or at least I think they’re ducks. They might be geese. (A subsequent visit to Barking confirmed that this is an East London thing, not just a Valentines Park thing.)
2. Ilford is home to the best-named running club I’ve come across all year – Sikhs in the City. It was co-founded by Fauja Singh, who took to marathon running at 89 and now holds the age 90+ world record.

Also, I ran a parkrun. Valentines parkrun to be precise, which is based at the 2011 Great British Bake Off filming venue, just north of Ilford. Valentines is a fairly flat, fast course, run entirely on tarmac. There are two laps, starting from a boating lake in the middle of the park.

I made it round in just short of 27 minutes, which is not too shabby at all, and more-or-less in line with previous weeks (see results).

Blurry but giant duck

 

I’m running a different parkrun each week of the year to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK. Please head over to my JustGiving page if you’re able to help out.