Running the Parks

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 : 44:51 Distance covered : 4.78 miles (7.69km) Soundtrack : Sam Cooke, The Man Who Invented Soul Conditions : sunny and warm Lots of blossom today. The south side is a pretty ideal area for running, all things considered. It's mostly flat, there are a lot of reasonably quiet roads (extremely quiet, at the moment), and it's just a really interesting environment. It's incredibly diverse in terms of the buildings, the street layouts and the feel of different neighbourhoods. There are wealthy enclaves a few hundred yards from very poor areas. There are mansions and tenements and fancy restaurants and greasy spoons and gardens and warehouses and river paths and alleys. And of course, there are a lot of parks. Once again, I combined daily exercise with my weekly delivery of supplies to my dad. I was pleased to see that the police have clarified it's okay to drive somewhere for daily exercise as long as more time is spent on the exercise than the driving...

Run time : 01:03:24 Distance covered : 6.67 miles (10.73km) Soundtrack : New Yorker Radio Hour , 13 Minutes to the Moon Podcasts Conditions : borderline hot An accidental 10k, because I got a little lost. Actually, it's the longest I have ever run, as far as I know. This project is really helping me up my distance, because it means I'm not really thinking about the exercise, I'm thinking about exploring. I started out in King George V Park (confusingly there's also a newer sign calling it Regents Park), which is one of those out-of-the-way and forgotten urban parks, but with a nice balance of open spaces and tree-lined paths. I left George V and there was a fairly lengthy run east and north along Thornliebank Road to the small but perfectly formed Greenbank Park , then across the road to the adjacent Auldhouse Park . These two were so close together that they almost felt like one park. Both small, but in decent shape. Nice spots ...

Run time : 31:51 Distance covered : 3.21m (5.17km) Soundtrack : Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast Conditions : actual sun Another park I've never set foot in despite driving past hundreds of times. I barely even knew it existed, but I'll definitely be back, especially since I didn't cover the whole place. I don't plot out these runs, just see where I end up, and on this occasion that led to me ending up on a track along the White Cart Water river, which was pretty to look at, but kind of a bastard in terms of steep climbs and steps. A lot of people out walking, despite, or perhaps because of the lockdown. A walk in the park is pretty much the only outdoor recreational activity open to people right now. Usually it's easy to stay clear of other walkers and runners, but there were a few tight stretches of paths where for the first time I felt kind of uncomfortable being close to other people (more for their sake than mine, in the case...

Date I ran:  26th January 2020 Run time:  34:59 Distance covered:  3.74m (6.02km) Soundtrack:  Laura Lippman,  The Lady in the Lake Conditions:  cold, sleet Probably one of the worst runs I've endured in terms of weather conditions. Started off cold but bearable, and a couple of minutes in it started raining, and then the rain turned to sleet. It was not fun to be out there in January in shorts and t-shirt. As a side effect, my phone screen is cracked, and it was so wet that I couldn't end the Strava session which meant I had to keep running, frantically trying to unlock my phone with numb fingers, like a really terrible version of Speed. But anyway, the park. Queens Park is one I've visited a fair amount, so it wasn't new territory for me. It's one of the major parks in the city, and like many it was originally on land owned by a wealthy family, in this case the Maxwells of Pollok. Wikipedia reports that it was Glasgow's third park (...