Mary's 50th parkrun

Bushy Park. Saturday 29-February-2020.

Mary has quite got into parkrun and it is all Nigel's fault! He started doing Couch to 5K and I thought how hard could that be. Easy, peasy as it turned out. Then he started doing parkrun so I signed up as well and started parkrunning at Tooting Common.

Nigel and Kate came to visit us in Italy in June 2018 with their friends Sarah and Andrew. Sarah is a keen runner and said “let’s do a parkrun”. “There isn’t a parkrun here” we said. “Oh yes there is” they said. Cue pantomime style banter. And they were right!

Salento Parkrun had only just started five weeks before. It was a bit of a drive, 1 hour 15 minutes, but we thought we'd give it a go. Drove down there to discover that our carful was 50% of the park runners that day, four out of the eight participants. Sarah was first lady!

While we were in Italy that summer it became a regular habit: I ran and Mary power walked her way around the course talking to Luana, the Run Director's mum, tail walker and cake baker. After a couple of weeks Saverio, the Run Director, persuaded Mary to sign up so she could get a bar code and an official time which means that Salento is Mary‘s home parkrun. She sometimes volunteers there as camminatore di coda (tail walker) which means she gets to practice her Italian.

Now if we go to a UK parkrun and they ask “Any visitors?” Mary can put up her hand and say “Yes, Southern Italy!”

Now she's hooked. Wants to do the alphabet. Always checks out where the nearest parkrun is whenever we are away. When she read that February 29th 2020 was the first ever Leap Day parkrun since it began and the last until 2048 she was super keen to complete her 50th parkrun at her home location of Salento on Leap Day.

We had booked the flights, the car hire and, as a treat, a Stansted hotel for the way back because of the late landing. The coronavirus put the kybosh on that. With two ageing mothers and a weekend cottage booked with a group of friends we could not take the faintest risk of transmitting the infection nor having to self-isolate on our return. So we binned the flights and cancelled the car and hotel.

That left the question of where to do Mary's 50th if not her home event. After some discussion we decided it really had to be the "mother ship" at Bushy Park. We absolutely could not risk missing the 9 o'clock start so rather than use public transport we Uber'ed our way over.

Sporting her Italian "Arriva un parkrunner" T-shirt she power-walked her way round in a respectable 44:12.

The semi-obligatory photo frame shot.

The course is very pleasant and one giant hourglass-shaped circuit. It was a bit muddy that day but full of people from all over celebrating that they were where it all started. We met a coach party of ladies from Notts Women Runners and an RD from Gorey in Southern Ireland.

Achievement unlocked! Red 50 T-shirt earned. Now Mary was counting the Saturdays to see how quickly she could get to her 100th however COVID-19 has scuppered those plans.