On a warm barmy autumn morning at Grange Recreation Ground, Letchworth, Hertfordshire I truly found peace on the penultimate event of my current adventure!

I have been blessed with meeting so many marvellous people in the previous run 98 events it was always going to be that I needed to give something back in some form of gesture to a parkrun community!!!!

99 celebration

I decided a good few months ago to celebrate my 99th different parkrun event with free ice cream with the community of Letchworth parkrun in honour of a good tourist Mark Sherwood from Basingstoke who very sadly passed away after a short illness!

So where did the idea of ice cream come from, well on Mark’s 99th event at Cassiobury, Watford he brought ice creams so with great fun help him to celebrate his milestone, top idea from a top man!

I received a very moving Facebook comment from one of my Letchworth parkun post yesterday from his brother Barry, ” Congratulations and you’re a top man Mark Layzell for dedicating it to my brother, I have no doubt he is watching all his friends at each parkrun every Saturday at 9am” 

As you can see from the pictures below everyone likes an ice cream and I think Mark would have approved and smiled down on us all yesterday!

Running Vest 3 – Luton, Wardown parkrun

This week I wore with great pride my home event of Luton, Wardown apricot parkrun UK vest that was number 3 of 4 on my run in to Houghton Hall for 100th event!

I was there volunteering at the start on 18/04/2015 and each week I always look out what Luton are doing while I am on my tourist adventures!

Now I am very delighted to be one of the run director at our Wardown Juniors and in so doing support our next generation of runners!

Course

The course is almost 2 undulating clockwise laps that surface is a mixture of grass, gravel and trail earth paths! The start is just outside Grange Recreation Ground park, then you run steadily downhill around the parameter of crop fields and half way round the course you hit a noticeable incline that on Strava is called Xfields!

Next you run down a steady decline gravel path back into the park, then turn right onto the grass and at the corner of the field onto an unusual wooded section that is a trail path running between two sets of trees! You then run to the left hand corner of the park, go through an A barrier exit to start lap 2.

On the end of the second lap you run along the wooded path again but this time turn sharp left onto the playing fields with the finish funnel located almost in the centre of the field!

Points to note

• In wet conditions this is definitely a trail shoes course
• Just take it steady running through the A barriers
• There are tractor tire impressions on the trail section that are quite deep for the unwary runner!
• As with any wooded path be careful of exposed tree roots, but to be fair they were not to bad on this course!

If you love course country-style parkrun courses than Letchworth is definitely the event for you, with undulating terrain run on multiple surfaces with a woodland path this is an off roads runners dream!

My time was 37.22 that was fine on a day more about the celebration and not the time!!

Facilities

There is a free small car park at Ground Recreation fields Sat Nav SG6 4PN with toilets are available before the start at the Grange Pavilion that is always welcome to us tourists!!

Unfortunately I hear there is no mobile cafe on site anymore and they instead go into town for their post run coffee!

Even though this is predominately sports playing fields there is a on site children’s play area and basketball court!

Final Verdict

I would like to thank Suzy Holding on her first stint at being a run director, you are a natural at the job especially having to deal with the extra craziness that I brought to the event 🙂 I would also like to thank Suzy’s Hi-Vis team with a special mention to Rebecca Greener who was my ice cream voucher volunteer for the morning!

Also special thanks to Vince and his company One Coronetto for supplying delicious ice creams to the Letchworth faithful and Andrew Mills from North Herts Council who granted me a land licence for the morning to use the car park!!

Last but definitely not least my running and university friends who made it even more a special day! I loved the celebration flags Danielle that you and your daughter Bridget (right of picture) made for this event, then she cheered me on around the course with her new friend Isabelle, a truly lovely touch 🙂

So thank you Letchworth for being great hosts and for me this day will live long in my memory!

Now just the small matter for the final event 100th event at Houghton Hall next week where there will be no ice cream but I can promise a stupendous cake to eat 🙂

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner