Running the Parks

Run time : 35:14 Distance covered : 3.83m (6.16km) Soundtrack : New Yorker Radio Hour podcast Conditions : biblical flood The first thing to say about this run is that it was wet .  Really wet. It started out in heavy rain and got worse. I don't think I've ever run in rain as hard as that.  It was my first single-park run for a while. A lot of the parks are small enough that I've grouped them together on single 5k(ish) runs, but there are still a few big enough to complete the whole run in one park, and this one stretches out for a comfortable fifty acres.  Victoria Park is one of the parks I was more familiar with. I used to play basketball on the courts in what I remember as glorious long, hot summers in the 90s. It was one of the few parks with outdoor courts back then, so the park was like a magnet, drawing all of the people independent-minded enough to play a sport other than football from ac

Run time : 30:19 Distance covered : 3.21m (5.17km) Soundtrack :  Alien: Out of the Shadows  by Tim Lebbon and Dirk Maggs Conditions : warm, sunny morning A return to the south side after a few excursions to the north, and a good opportunity to cover some more of the city's biggest park. I started off in Ashtree Park , which is another small local square. This one is a bit more down-at-heel than average, with a playpark that looks a little deathtrappy. The surrounding neighbourhood is a little rough around the edges too - there's a beautiful old Victorian school across the road (visible above) that's been left to rot. Boarded up windows, weeds growing from the roof. In a more fashionable part of town it would be flats or a pub.  One distinguishing and unexplained feature is a stone monolith, surrounded by randomly strewn shards of graven sandstone. No clue where they're from or what it represents - answers o

Run time : 31:19 Distance covered : 3.30m (5.31km) Soundtrack : New Yorker Radio Hour podcast Conditions : overcast, muggy Working all weekend for a book deadline meant it had been five days since my previous run, which itself was pretty hard going as that had been the first in eight days. This one, thanks to hills, was even tougher. I started out across where I left off a month or two ago, across the road from Hogganfield Park. Riddrie Park doubles as a cemetery, and from the newness of some of the gravestones toward the top of the park, it feels like the cemetery is slowly expanding to take over the whole park. There are great views south over the city from the top of the hill. If you like graveyards, you'll like this park. If you don't... well, there's not much else to this one. Down the hill and along Provanmill Road to Molendinar Park , which is challenging to find on Google, because it's the name of