New Year: Prosecco and Parkrun

So after Christmas, came New Year's (as is traditional) and I suppose we should let you know how things progressed...and only three weeks late!

As it happens, Adrian, Tommy and I all spent the week surrounding NYE together.  You may have images of some intensive training camp at high altitude; in actual fact the opposite was true: a week in the Cotswolds consuming wine and cheese.  Of course, we were not there alone.  The group totalled a dozen people, and it didn't take long for the three of us to bore everyone who would listen about the latest time we'd posted and (in my case at least), the series of unfortunate circumstances that meant I wasn't as fast as I should be.

The gang out for a wintery run in the 'Wolds

And of course, the competitive element continued with two opportunities for Parkruns while we were there.

The first of these was on New Year's Day itself.  Despite the epic board game sessions late night revelry of the evening before, Adrian and I headed out into the rain to try out Chippenham Parkrun, a nice, but extremely muddy run alongside the bank of the river Avon.  Spurred on by his heroics over Christmas, Adrian stormed home in 22.25.  Despite registering my second sub 23 minute time a few days before (at the beautiful Whitley Bay Parkrun), I could only finish 80 seconds behind.  Given the conditions though, we were both pleased with our performance.  In case you were wondering, Tommy spent the morning in bed.

The following Saturday, all three of us made it to Cheltenham Parkrun, where the New Year's resolutions were clearly underway as an enormous crowd turned up to pound the pavement.  In truth, the course was not designed for quite a turnout, and the narrow pathways got clogged.  Adrian took full advantage, and got ahead of the crowd early, to cross the finish line in 21.49.  Tommy and I finished well behind, and left bemoaning our poor tactics in not getting to the front early.

So the winner of New Year and Christmas: Adrian Dracup.