Today was the first ever Parkrun at Lister Park in Bradford. Conditions were perfect: dry, pleasantly warm & sunny. The park which is better known to most of us from Bradford as Manningham Park was looking at its best: flower beds in bloom, well maintained paths & Cartwright Hall as impressive as ever. There were quite a lot of non runners around, but this wasn't a problem at all as the paths are 4 or 5 metres wide throughout the park.
I did a couple of laps of the course as a warm up (the race is 3 & a bit laps), then at the start saw plenty of familiar faces, including Andy W & his young daughter, Justin P, Josie H from Otley AC & Richard B from Bingley Harriers. There was a good attendance of maybe a hundred or so runners, which is good for a first event.
The pace was brisk as ever at the start of a 5k, after a few hundred metres I was in about 10th place with Justin not far ahead & Josie alongside. The problem with the course is the hill which comes after about 1k on the first lap, it starts of quite steep, then levels out a bit, but is continuously uphill for about 500m. This certainly makes the route much slower than it otherwise would be.
I worked my way past a few runners, including Justin, who is recovering from illness. The finish of the race is just after the 3rd time up the hill, with an extra incline added on for good measure.
I finished in 18:45 (unofficial timing, not seen the results yet) in 5th place. The time was nothing special, but considering it includes three climbs up the hill I was quite happy with my run.
After the race I joined Justin, Josie & Richard on a 9.5k warm down run, including plenty more hills & a good chat. There was a pleasant section through Northcliffe Park, which covered part of my old school cross country course. All in all it was a very enjoyable morning's running, covering about 18.5k in total including the race.
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