A fun TRC outing to muddy Oaklands College for a few of us. The course is a double lapper and if you go later in the year, it will be much faster as half the course is extremely muddy. Not quite as muddy as this week’s cross-country photos but not far off! That said TRC are a hardy bunch and with all the trail running we do; you should find yourself at an advantage compared to those who normally run on tarmac.
Despite the conditions, the TRC fastest times at Oaklands College were broken with Neil Adcock 26:51 and Lorraine Hurford very close after with 26:55 being the latest fastest male and female times – will be interesting to see how these records change as the course dries out. Neil’s time was particularly impressive as he was pushing Theo around in a buggy, ploughing through the mud!
44 of us ran a parkrun on Saturday with some also doing the cross country at Oxford! There were 12 at Wendover, 8 at the very muddy Oaklands College and 6 at Houghton Hall. After 7 possible 2025 parkruns there are still 12 runners who haven’t missed one yet, with 13 missing just 1.
With this new parkrun, I thought I’d look at the NENDY’S (Nearest Event Not Yet Done) for the 151 of you who have run at least one parkrun – however it hasn’t had much of an impact as most people’s NENDY is much closer. To explain the table below, the parkruns are listed from closest to furthest from the TRC clubhouse. Of those who have run a parkrun, 22 haven’t run at Wendover but 129 have. Of these 129, 27 haven’t run at Dunstable but 102 have etc. Have a look how far you down the table you get until there is a parkrun that you haven’t done.
| Nearest to Furthest | NENDY | Further |
| Wendover Woods | 22 | 129 |
| Dunstable Downs | 27 | 102 |
| Gadebridge | 26 | 76 |
| Aylesbury | 8 | 68 |
| Church Mead | 15 | 53 |
| Houghton Hall | 6 | 47 |
| Rushmere | 2 | 45 |
| Luton Wardown | 25 | 20 |
| Leavesden Country | 2 | 18 |
| Wycombe Rye | 5 | 13 |
| Oaklands College | 6 | 7 |
Podiums this week were Luke Delderfield (1st at Milton Keynes), Lynda Hembury (1st female at Dunstable) and Louise Bladen (3rd female at Dunstable).
Well done Liz Daniels for a personal course PB at Oakwell Hall.
Furthest travelled in the UK was Jules Wake at Holyrood, with its scenic views over Edinburgh and a Scottish 9:30 start. Welcome back to Geoff Roser who ran his first parkrun for 3 years and immediately became our “furthest travelled” this week at Fish Hoek in Cape Town.
Alison and Chris Bill earned their “J” for the alphabet challenge with their visit to Jersey Farm.
Also well done to Alison for achieving her ¼ Cowell with 25 different parkrun locations.
There were aesthetically pleasing times by Joni Duncan with her matching 29:29 at Wendover, Paul Allen with his ascending 23:45 at Dunstable and my mirrored time of 31:13 at Oaklands College.
Congrats to Joni Duncan and Emmaleen Muldoon who both improved their all-time best finish token with improvements from 92 to 87 and 83 to 65 respectively.
If you had a go at guessing the most seen “L’s”, it should have been relatively easy with the local trio of Leavesden Country, Linford Wood and Luton Wardown.
Next quiz – for the 3 most popular “M’s” – you are looking for one locally, one in Leicestershire and a seaside town in Kent.
Our next TRC trip is on 8th March to St Albans parkrun. Same area of the world as this week’s trip but less mud! More details of the course at https://www.parkrun.org.uk/stalbans/course/
Parkrun corner will be taking a break for a couple of weeks as the Evans’s are surprisingly visiting a couple of non-parkrun countries!
Andy Evans