parkrunday 26th January 2019
parkrun #55 – Phoenix parkrun (visit #2)
Time: 23:37
Every month I run my home parkrun Princes once and do touristing the rest of the time. This year I’ve decided to return to some of the events I ran last year that I really enjoyed, and (apart from Birkenhead which I’ve done five times) Phoenix is the first one I’ve gone back to.
My first visit to Phoenix parkrun was on 15th September 2018. I was jetlagged after returng from Taiwan and despite clocking a slowish (for me) time of 23:48 I still finished in 5th position. At only 72 participants this was the smallest parkrun I’d run so far (and still is).
Phoenix parkrun is in Castlefields, Runcorn, Cheshire. I worked just down the road from Phoenix Park for 6 years and never knew the place existed! The route starts in the park and runs up a hill, across the top of the park alongside the busway (yes, it’s Runcorn!), back down the hill via a loop through the woods, out along the reservoir (it’s a lake…), back along the Bridgewater Canal, then back into the park returning to the start. On the third lap the course finishes after the wooded section.
Today was a little different though. Because it was their second birthday they decided to run the course in reverse! There was lots of debate at the start and finish as to which way was easier. I think I prefer the normal direction, but I still beat my previous time by 11 seconds!
There was plenty of fancy dress, and a big birthday cake at the finish. I got overtaken on the last lap by a nun and a man pushing a buggy, but I’m OK with that because hey, it’s parkrun!
Many parkruns have a community feel to them, and this really came across at Phoenix. I’ve already added it to my list of events to do for a third time in my quest (I’m not really questing for it!) to improve my P Index.
Parkrunopedia
The P Index is the number of parkruns completed the same number of times.
If you’ve run two different events twice your P Index is 2.
If you’ve run four different events four times your P Index is 4.
You can see from this how hard it is to increase your P Index.