There was only one place that I was going to don the Santa suit one last time today and that had to be the fetchingly named Old Deer Park, North Richmond by the river Thames!

A total of 66 souls braved the cold to run this event and I salute you and all the volunteers! It is so easy to give up with more illustrious local parkruns like Richmond and Bushey taking a majority of the runners each week!

I love the idea of choice and the patrons of this event make sure with their hard work and dedication that parkruns like Old Deer will never fade away because they are loved. Top work guys!

Glad to have my wingman was on board again today, Martin you bring sunshine and laughter on the coldest of Christmas Eve days mate 🙂

Course

The course entails running just over three clockwise laps of the parameter of Old Deer park with a small dogleg at the far end! It is almost entirely run on grass apart from a small section that can be run on a tarmac footpath when the lap crosses by it!

It was passable to use normal trainers today but in hindsight with moisture on a winter course it is probably a safer bet to use trail shoes, lesson learned!

Personal Stats

Today I just needed to finish the event with a touch of man flu, running on a grass course in a Santa suit it was always going to be a tough gig, time 40:10

Important Info

As always I use my car to get to these events and was surprised to see the higher tariff for this parkrun designated car park against other free or cheaper subsidised ones I have used so far on this challenge!

Toilets are available before and after race from the local adjacent swimming pool! The swimming pool cafe also had an outside hatch to serve the runners and had a nice touch of a bell you had to ring for service!

Final Verdict

I would like to thank Clive and his team of volunteers in making us feel welcome today and the cakes and Christmas Eve drinks afterwards were a lovely thought, top work guys!

Extra News

As I have mentioned in other blog posts this challenge has taken me away from beloved local parkrun Luton, Wardown where today

• Stopsley Striders my running club organised a takeover of the event with 48 members taking the call to run!
• There was record attendance of 275 parkrunners
• Top running friends reached the personal milestones of 50 parkruns!

I miss you all and look forward to be back again in June 2017!

Best

Mark Layzell aka Silent Runner

Run on 24/12/2016