I was slightly confused when the alarm went off at 07:30. I couldn’t work out why when I’d only gone to bed at just after 02:00 and it was still pitch black outside. Surely it must be a mistake. No wait, it’s New Year’s Day and that means a double parkrun. Time to get up, get some breakfast on board and take to the roads.

I’m not sure whether Chipping Sodbury were aware how many people were going to start their parkrun year with them, but they had marshalls out to help squeeze as many cars into the carpark as possible, with only a couple having to park outside on the road. I had managed a pb on Christmas Day whilst dressed in a festive fleece onesie, so was hoping to do better this time. Alas I’m not sure whether it was the reduced sleep, the headwind on the exposed return part of the lap, or too much cheese the night before, but I was 10 seconds slower. That’s still a time I’m more than happy with though, and I stayed ahead of Alison Engledew somehow who later told me she was trying to catch me most of the way around.

I finished 70th out of 268 parkrunners, was 8th lady and second in my age category.

Jump into the car and back out onto the road in a convoy off to Pomphrey Hill. I got there nice and early and stayed in my car away from the biting wind. When I did venture out I soon went back from my gloves (both gloves and jacket were dumped after the first lap at both parkruns). Until Chipping Sodbury which is 3 lap course with a slight hill, Pomphrey Hill is a 3 lap course with a more substantial hill (though both finish uphill which is plain mean).

On the first lap I managed to actually work out where in Bristol I was (which doesn’t happen often) as I saw the pencil sculpture which I recognised from alternative routes I’d taken from the Bristol-Bath railway path. It wasn’t enough to distract me from the hill, though. On the first lap I ran up it, on the second and third laps I started running up it and finished walking up it. I still made it home sub 25 minutes though, which is not bad given the walking and the uphil finish. I then hung around cheering on the rest until the last person had made it all the way around. The queue for the cafe was a bit long though, so I headed back home to buy new trail shoes in the sweatshop sale.

I finished 96th out of 309 parkrunners (maybe more, they said they only had tokens for 309), was 13th lady and 2nd in my age category.