. . a Willen Winter Wonderland . .

Happy Boxing/Stephen's Day!! Hope you enjoyed/survived yesterday? I delayed my journey to my parents in York from the 24th, thought I'd give myself a day off and allow the holiday traffic to clear the M1 for me . .

 

I was told that Christmas Dinner would be on the table at 2pm, so I could get up and leave mid-morning or I could rise early, and stop off at parkrun Milton Keynes en route to Yorkshire . .

 . . of course the lure of parkrun was irresistible . . and so shortly before 9am I found myself in the still snow covered car park beside Willen Lake in MK, with 80 or so others, many of whom were to my mind inadequately dressed for the conditions . . they would be the runners then!!

 

Once they'd gone, the few of us that remained shivered, and watched Nig set up the finish area, and waited . . 

and shivered some more as we watched people in shorts running along the far bank of the frozen Lake, before they rounded the final bend, smiled and waved at Ian taking his first race photographs . .

 

. . and slithered and sprinted and slipped and strode along the last 200 metres to the finish line . .

  . . and mostly hung around for a while, stretching and chatting and enjoying the sunshine whilst waiting to see how friends and relatives had done . .

   . . it turned out that Hazel and Kevin had run around at the back of the pack, collecting the signs along the way . . so that once they'd finished . . 

 

 

. . we could all head off to wherever we were going to spend our Christmas Day . .

 

Seasons Greetings . .

It is, so we're told, the Season to be Merry and indeed it is . . but boy, the weather we're currently "enjoying" is certainly making it difficult!

I'm bound for York on Christmas Eve, all being well. Didn't make it last year, thanks to the snow and I never dreamt that for 2 English winters in a row I might be unable to make that particular journey on that particular day . .

With good luck and fairer weather then of course I will do . . although the weather forecast isn't predicting fair weather . .

I don't know what it has to say about good luck . .

In the meantime, I'd like to wish those of you who have stumbled upon my blog a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year . . 

Be warm, be safe, and be kind to one another . .

. . ice, ice, baby . .

Yesterday morning was my final race of the year, the Andy Reading 10k, over the other side of Bicester in a village called Chesterton . .

As soon as I stepped out of the car I realised it was slippery, there'd been a hard frost earlier, and guessed the race might be in doubt . .

And as the number of runners increased and race time of 10.30 approached the decision was taken to delay the start by half an hour, hoping it would give the sun the chance to get above some of the taller trees and complete the melting process on the icy roads . .

This proved to be a good plan, as the race took place without any obvious slippery incidents, and 443 runners, just 2 less than last year, completed the event . .

I had a great time taking photographs, first at the start, and then soon after the 2k mark after the runners had completed a loop of Chesterton, and finally at about 9k, when the runners crossed the M40 for the final time. Here I decided to lie down and get a slightly different view on the world, which seemed to work well, apart from the stiff neck I had when I stood up once again after being prone for 32 minutes . .

And after the race, instead of dashing home as I often do to start processing the photos, it was nice to spend an hour or so in the Red Cow at Chesterton in the company of some good friends and roast dinners . .

Weather from the Wardrobe . .

When will it all end . . this horrible weather, I mean. Here in the Home Counties it isn't quite so bad, just bloomin' cold, but I know that for example in Hull and York, it's like some kind of parallel universe . . has the White Witch escaped from the Wardrobe?

So it's good to look ahead to the New Year and hopefully better weather. In January I'm returning to north Bristol and will be taking photos of the Riverbank Rollick on the 16th. It's staged by Thornbury Running Club, is around 9 miles, and is described as multi-terrain. From my own experience in 2008, it's mostly mud, wind and rain. The race heads west from Thornbury as far as you can go, then you run south along the bank of the Severn Estuary for a while, before returning to Thornbury, where just before the end you have an opportunity to clean your shoes whilst running along (which is to say in) a stream. Which is where I'll be, with camera.

Later in the month, on the evening of the 27th, I'll be near Cambridge at the inaugural LodeStar Night Run . . a 10k over three laps, with obstacles. The obstacles are floodlit, hopefully brightly enough for me to take good photos of everyone. Runners don't generally like to stand still and pose mid-race, for obvious reasons, but I'm hoping that by the 3rd lap, if they're not quite stationary, they won't be moving very quickly and that will be my best chance . .

No photos of either of these locations so I'll leave you with an image from this year's edition of one of the races I'm attending in February . . of which I'll write sometime soon . .

No races to report on . .

 . . from last weekend, nor have I any planned for next – which is probably just as well considering the current weather conditions . .

Here towards the north of Buckinghamshire we seem - at the time of writing – to have got off comparatively lightly with only one light snowfall to speak of, so we just have to contend with the cold – very fortunate compared to others around the country.

Let’s hope I’ve not just tempted fate!!

Returning to races and photographs – I do like the way Anne and Andy at Dirt Running have used my photos on their website to illustrate the recent Dirt Half Challenge – it’s nice to see my photos being put to good use . . 

I’ve been working on the programme of races I will be at in the early part of next year – at the moment in the first 2 months I’m covering 2 brand new events and long-standing event which I covered last year. I’m waiting to hear from a 4^th race about whether they’d like me to go along or not and then I’ll blog about them . .