It’s been 18 months since I last made an appearance at
What with the girls’ dance classes on Saturday mornings and the fact Helen has worked most Saturdays for the past 18 months, getting to parkrun has been tricky. Up until now, the closest parkrun to us has been at Dalby Forest – then I heard that Castle Howard had set one up.
Castle Howard parkrun
Castle Howard is one of the finest stately homes in the whole of the United Kingdom. As well as the stunningly beautiful house there are superb gardens and acres of land – oh and a couple of lakes. It’s been the home of the Howard family for over 300 years!
The parkrun at Castle Howard is very new. In fact, yesterday was only the 6th time this event has taken place. But, what an amazing venue for a Park Run – it’s awesome.
Even on a rainy autumn day in North Yorkshire you can’t
‘Twas a bit wet
At the obligatory pre-run briefing we were warned that one particular section had become rather muddy. I’m not surpised given it’s rained pretty much every day for a week. It was raining hard as this briefing was given!
I didn’t find the section muddy at all. That’s because it was flooded! As I headed down towards yet another out and back I could see a thin strip of land sandwiched between two large brown pools of water. The trouble was that everyone was trying to run on that dry strip.
That would be ok if it weren’t for the fact there were runners going in both directions. Innevitebly there was a bump. Another chap and I clashed shoulders and boy did that hurt!
A route full of out and backs
The course in completely different from Dalby Forest – my only other parkrun point of reference.
Dalby is a single loop on generally wide forest tracks, Castle Howard is not.
It really is a course of out and back after out and back using the paths and tracks around the house. This does made it a bit crowded at the start until the runners gets stretched out.
Because I had Duke with me I started towards the back of the field so as not to hold anyone up. Bad idea.
Duke and I run together all the time. We’re quick for a human-dog partnership and we were soon weaving in and out passing people as we got up to our pace. A lesson was learnt there – start further up next time!
One thing’s for sure – you are never short of a good view on the route around Castle Howard.
I’ll be back
Castle Howard is only 12 miles from home, whereas Dalby Forest is almost 20 miles. So, it seems that this is now my home parkrun.
Lydia seemed to enjoy it, I just wish she had more time for running. I know she enjoys it and it so good for her mental heatlh. She wants to go back next week so we’ll be there.
This was actually only my 8th parkrun, and it was Duke’s first. We can’t wait to do it more often now that our circumstances
Duke was really well behaved. He’s becoming a bit of a dick when out in public lately so I am hoping that going to parkrun regularly will get him better socialised with a variety of humans and dogs.
My favorite part of the day was watching a woman running with an Irish wolf hound! It was so big she could have ridden it!
Thanks for reading
D
