08/08/2026
We hope you all enjoyed your morning away from QP (although not that much - we want you all back next week!). Charlie took some of his crew on a road trip to Ae Forest and had a brilliant time with a post run swim.
Alex visited last week and is journalling his alphabet adventures so here's his take on his visit
By Royal Appointment
In the course of my alphabetical order challenge (of courses new to me), achieving ‘Q’ would not be easy. There are only 12 parkruns worldwide that begin with a ‘Q’. The nearest one to me, in Hampshire, would necessitate over two hours on the road just to reach it. I did not want to arrive exhausted at a parkrun. If it was going to be distant, I might as well lean into that fact. My additional quest for 2026 was to do at least one parkrun in each of the Home Nations. Thus I settled on Queen’s, Glasgow.
When I did Folkestone on 21st March, I went onto barcode scanning after my run and got talking to a fellow scanner, Sophie Haydock, who had her arm in a sling (otherwise she would have been running). I mentioned my particular alphabet challenge and she said she was engaged in completing it herself; indeed, Sophie acquired all the letters on 25th July and she went to Queen’s, Glasgow, on 18th July. As I was to find out from Run Director, Laura Ritchie, the course is quite popular among parkrunners from England.
On 1st August, I hoped to do similar to Folkestone and barcode scan after my run but was informed that one would need to complete their hilly course in less than 25 minutes. Therefore, eight days prior, I got into training (normally I don’t between parkruns to ease pressure on my leg joints). I knew that the vertiginous Lullingstone had added three minutes to my average (of 25 minutes); furthermore, my last parkrun at Peacehaven had been on 4th July and a gap of four weeks (I had been volunteering) was not conducive to sub-25 on any course, let alone a rugged one. On Friday 24th, I did 2.5km around my local in Leybourne Lakes, planning a repeat regimen on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. But my left foot was hurting quite a bit after the Friday run so I skipped the Sunday session to rest it. To make up for missing Sunday, I did a full 5K on Tuesday evening, which had the rather unfortunate consequence of my right knee (my good knee) seizing up. The subsequent reliance on my left kneed (with the cartilage fracture) meant that also was replete with painful twinges. I rested both legs propped on an upturned laundry basket as a makeshift stool as much as I could and counted down the days and eventually the hours before Queen’s began, noting incremental improvements. I was still going to Glasgow whatever but in what condition my legs would be to do the course was unknown. I would limp round if nothing else.
The train journey was from New Hythe (central Kent) to Strood (north Kent) to St Pancras, London (walk) to Euston, London, to Glasgow Central. Earlier in the year, this journey would have been in some doubt after a fire in a v**e shop burnt down a historic building abutting the station and forcing the closure of this railway hub. Looking at the site now, it is a considerable scar and the developers have put portholes in the wooden hoarding so one can see the depth to which even the foundations had to be removed. There was a beggar present, saying he was homeless and in a cashless society, such activity is a harder gig but I had a spare apple to give for which he was grateful.
I had no intention of spending the night on the Glaswegian streets and had reserved the cheapest accommodation I could find centrally. Safestay was a multi-occupancy dormitory set-up and it was merely somewhere to lay my body. Having slept on the train after it passed Oxenholme in Cumbria, it took a while to drift off and then some fellow room users came in about 1 am. Despite having curtains round each bed, there were gaps between the hanging and the bed frame and thus I woke up with the dawn light blasting through the thin main blinds at 5.30 am. I closed my eyes until 7.45 am, my original schedule. Leaving Safestay to damp streets was a pleasing novelty after 40+ days of drought in the south.
Getting to Glasgow Central by 8.50 am, I purchased a return ticket to Queen’s Park. In the first carriage, I noticed several individuals in sporty attire and not long after I had taken my seat, an older lady turned round and asked if I was going to parkrun (I was wearing shorts and my 100 black shirt). After I said I was to Queen’s, Glasgow, she informed me that she was trying to get to Pollok parkrun and was unsure if she was on the right train. The guard came along, confirming she and her companion had purchased tickets to Pollokshields West when she was meant to have bought a ride to Pollokshaws West station. Another nearby lady said she haf lived in Glasgow for ten years and still got confused. The older woman was also on the wrong train for both the correct and the erroneous destinations, having been directed to this by a member of station staff. I rationalised that as she was not going to get to another parkrun before 9.30 am (Scottish start time), she might as well come to Queen’s, plus they would be able to tick off ‘Q’ into the bargain.
Her name was Hilary, with connections to Folkestone parkrun and her companion was Nicky, who regularly attended Walmer and Deal parkrun. Hilary was here to support her daughter who was involved in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and had an apartment close to Pollok parkrun. Checking her phonemap, Hilary said to Nicky that they could walk to Pollok after Queen’s, though she was apprehensive as her daughter had related how the latter was ‘a horrible parkun’ with all the slopes. I have more equanimity about such things – I never condemn a route; they all have their own character and difficulty is relative. Moreover, the love the regulars show is the true value of a parkrun. I mentioned I had been to both their local courses, going to the café after Walmer and Deal, chatting with Kerry and Dave, the event directors, who had played a big part in my old stomping ground of Great Lines, Medway.
We made the short stroll from the station to the park and saw the huddle of pink-vested volunteers almost immediately. The parkrun sign was a little further along and after our photos with it, we listened to the First Timers’ Welcome delivered by Run Director Laura holding her adorable dog in a bridle emblazoned with ‘Run Director’. Aside from me, there were tourists from Bristol and York but also Canada and Australia (but no South Africans, which apparently is a thing at Queen’s, Glasgow). A volunteer held a sign displaying ‘Haud yer weesht. Run Director is speaking’ – a lovely local touch.
Laura stood on a bench for her Director briefing, projecting her voice unaided. She did a run-down of the rules and courtesies and summarised the homes of the tourists, before pointing out the bin collection lorry halfway up the hill and while hoping they should be finished soon, cautioned the faster runners to be careful should they encounter it.
The moment of truth had arrived – were my knees ready? And would I stop prefixing my sentences with clichés? No guarantees on either. I stationed myself some way back from the start in preparation for a slower time. Yet I wasn’t going to hold back in what my body would allow.
The first stretch along the bottom of the mound was pleasantly flat but past the earliest corner was the first of the inclines and it became progressively steeper the closer one reached the summit of the plateau and my pace decelerated appreciably, despite the encourage of the marshal to the runners. The following path was mostly horizontal until we reached the second ‘hill’ (Laura has briefed that we were running up three hills and down one per lap), whose gradient was not as severe as the previous one but still energy sapping. The marshal located at the summit of this said we had permission to sprint the next section yet it was more a case of catching our breath.
The next marshal we encountered, posted by fencing, would have her umbrella open when I passed her on the second lap but folded on the first and third laps, alluding to the changeability of the weather, precipitation ranging from moderate rain to light drizzle. Far from inconvenience, it was a cool balm to bodies in the throes of exercise and thus was close to ideal parkrun weather.
Surmounting a few speed bumps on the road, a marshal was at the corner where we confronted the third hill. The difficulty of ascent here was not as bad as the first hill but decidedly harder than the second hill. As promised by Laura, there were glorious views of Glasgow but there was no time to hang around admiring it – there was a parkrun to finish. Nearing the apex second time round, another park user was observing us with wonderment – “You must think us all crazy,” I exclaimed lightheartedly to him. “No, I think you’re all doing brilliant,” he replied.
In running to the bottom, at parts of the decline I took care not to overbalance myself by spreading my hands. Presumably one of the regulars on hearing my puffing on the first lap (my breathing posture if often questioned) told me, “The downhill is the bit you can enjoy.” Some of the speedsters lapping me were barrelling down.
Turning the corner as we reached ‘Zero metre above sea level’ (not literally but it felt like it), it was a straight shot along the path, past the finish funnel to the corner that heralded the first hill, although this wasn’t the case for the second lap as a large white van had reached the midway point and seemed to be doing a three-point turn, prompting me to detour onto the grass, giving it a wide berth as it reversed. Laura was on hand to control the situation.
The second and third laps were not as onerous as having experienced them already I knew that once I had surpassed the crest of the first hill the rest of the lap was manageable. I always expressed my gratitude to the marshals each time I passed them – they were, in no particular order, Mark Coles, Naomi Wachs, Chris Darley, Stephanie Twigg, Sheila Murray, Vicki Hunt, Jeff Hunt, Susan Hancock and Marissa Smirl.
The benefit of not barcode scanning post-run is that you can give your legs a proper rest sooner. Saying this, I misinterpreted the scanner who took my barcode stating to the crowd, “We have third barcode scanner,” to which I offered to jump on to the role but she explained her fellow taker of barcodes on the far-left was underused. I would be content with a teal square on my parkrun app profile. These peeps were Amy Frank, Beryl Frank and Annabel Sykes. I stretched out my legs near the finish line and applauded those who went past the timekeepers Andrew Ferguson and Stephen Lappin into the attentions of funnel managers Anika Heckwolf and Elaine Love. Talking of time, I finished in 26 minutes, 44 seconds – I failed to meet the criteria of sub-25 but it was a personally decent finish given the terrain and the mishaps with my knees in the days leading up to it.
I lingered after the parkwalkers Claire Henson and Kate Hayward and tail walker Fiona Campbell passed to see if there was anything I could help for the packaway and while there learnt from number checker Karen Fletcher that were 343 finishers at event 259. This was a substantial uplift on the previous week of 274 and even more so when Sophie Haydock did it prior to that, being one of 149. There were plenty of tourists (9 of the top ten fastest fell into that category). Part of the rise in today’s figures though was drawn from 17 (count ‘em, 17!) people new to parkrun entirely: Pat Ellis, Deborah Wright, Alan McQueen, Lucie Clairambault, Jacob Stopps, Leyton Cringle, Robert Brown, Abi Carr, Isla McNutt, Sophie Shepherd, Douglas Dias, Martha Sapsed, Bronwyn Docherty Stewart, Hannah Jackson, Scott Kennedy, Rachel Hollywell and Jessica Annie Marks. We welcome you to this community and hope you flourish within it going forward.
Among that 343 (Laura showed some amazing mental maths, identifying it as the cube root base number of 7), Adele Melia, Tom Mintram, Rebecca Ford logged a quarter century of runs, Karen Lawlor finished for the 100th time and Hilary Lawrence (separate from the Hilary Collins I met on the way here) posted 250. 33 personal bests were also set. Congratulations all.
I had been talking pre-run to the finish token volunteers, Jon Payne and Arthur Mulholland, one of whom said he was from Sittingbourne and recognised the whereabouts of Leybourne Lakes. Post-run, I asked him about Sittingbourne parkrun but he said he moved away in 1981 (before I was born), migrating northwards via Norwich, Manchester and Scotland for work purposes. I said there was a parkrun in the Shetlands if he continued this trajectory but he demurred, explaining he was not a small island person.
Laura and he also got talking about enjoyable parkruns down south and we all agreed that Thames Path, Woolwich, was a sterling example of that. I recommended Bushy for its flat, one-lap nature and also Nonsuch. As we decamped to the Baptist church adjoining the park that provided storage for the equipment, Laura pulled the trolley and I picked up the parkrun sign and a clapperboard directing runners to a café within the capacious building.
I remarked that though it is not a registered role at Queen’s, Glasgow, I would be writing a report as a memento of my time here and to form it as a chapter of a chronicle on completion of my alphabet challenge. Laura said they discontinued that as the reports they got in felt AI-generated (Nonsuch reported the same problem) and it was unfair that someone should get a credit for what was not their own work, while being time-consuming trying to sift the manufactured pieces from the human ones.
On Friday morning, Laura was considering cancelling the parkrun due to unavailability of key volunteers e.g. timekeeper (the school holidays exacerbating the issue). I would have been pretty devastated had that come to pass given the effort and expense I’d put in to reach Glasgow and the impact it would have on my unfolding alphabet schedule. Luckily, some volunteers forsook their intended runs but Laura correctly stated this was not the right way to resource a parkrun (also shout-out to Victoria Foote who helped Laura with the pre-event setup).
Once inside the church café, we packed the equipment in a cupboard in the corner and I noticed a map of parkrun detailing where the tourists who came here originated. There was a clear part of the map to append my green circle (for my volunteering count) sticker. This was an initiative run by the church, Laura said. The café offered tea and coffee for a suggested £1 donation but being an aficionado of neither of those beverages, I settled for almond milk. I joined Laura and the token sorters, alternately stroking Laura’s dog and helping perform quality control on the assembled token bundles, while chatting away. The summation of the splendid conclusion to a parkrun.
The remainder of my time in Glasgow I spent admiring the street culture for the Commonwealth Games and went to the Gallery of Modern Art. It was fronted by an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington multi-coned, inspiring part of the Games’ logo and reminding me of the Thomas Waghorn statue in Chatham near where I grew up similarly hatted.
