Running the Parks

Run time : 37:39 Distance covered : 4.03 miles (6.49km) Soundtrack : Surviving , Jimmy Eat World Conditions : heat This is the first run since I was in Corfu last year where I've wished I was carrying a water bottle. Actually hot. One of my idiosyncrasies is I think of winter temperatures in Celsius and summer in Fahrenheit, and today definitely felt like 80 ° . Today I was mopping up the last few eastern parks as lockdown eases up. It's been getting busier in the parks for a few weeks, but the social distancing seemed to have gone out of the window today, possibly due to the Cummings Effect. I started off at Beardmore Park , which is one of those new parks that's basically just the disused space in the intersection between two diagonal roads which has been landscaped. It's nicely done for this sort of thing, with a playpark and a couple of interesting features. Small, but it makes good use of the space. I le

Run time : 30:58 Distance covered : 3.36 miles (5.41km) Soundtrack : Red Desert , by Paddy Magrane Conditions : after the rain First large park I've run in a while. Although there are a lot more people out than a few weeks ago, the weather was pretty uninspiring today, so the park was quiet. I love running in between smaller parks and checking out the different neighbourhoods, but it was a nice change to be in a park where I could run a whole 5k without repeating my steps too much. This is probably the biggest Glasgow park I had never been in before. I've only ever driven past it when traffic has forced me off the M8 and onto Alexandra Parade. It's an interesting park. Kind of iceberg-like, in that there's a small area near the entrance that's very well-presented with flower beds and a Victorian fountain, but there's a big, rougher hinterland that a casual visitor could miss. It's Victorian, which means it's a

Run time : 32:34 Distance covered : 3.56 miles (5.73km) Soundtrack : Red Desert , by Paddy Magrane Conditions : cool with some sun I ran the (rather uninspiring) Carmyle New Park early on in this project, before I had assembled a full list of Glasgow parks, so unbeknownst to me, I had run within yards of Buckingham Park without noticing. I had to pick up a prescription today, so decided to get my weekly longer run in in that neck of the woods. Buckingham is much nicer than Carmyle Park. It's just at the entrance to Carmyle, which is an oddly secluded little neighbourhood, cut off from everywhere else by the Clyde on one side and the M74 on the other. It's small, but it has some really beautiful trees, and a playpark and a basketball court.  I've noticed that loads of parks in the city now have basketball courts. I would have loved if that had been the case back in the 90s, when I was playing basketball every day. As it is

Run time : 40:02 Distance covered : 4.22 miles (6.79km) Soundtrack : Two Crime Writers & a Microphone podcast  Conditions : overcast, muggy I came across a great quote from Werner Herzog the other day: "The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot." It reminded me of the real attraction of this project. Again, I was running in an area I've passed through hundreds of times by car, but it's completely transformed on foot. Another thing I noticed from the volume of cars on the road and the people on the pavements, it feels like lockdown is starting to ease off, no matter what the official advice is. People do seem to be getting better at observing a safe distance though, and it's still possible to run out on the road when necessary. I started off in Budhill Park, which is small but well-kept. They had a special Covid19 banner that helpfully measures out six feet. A nice park, and like many of them at this time of year, improv