A seasonal Gunnersbury parkrun this week as we were both running as Santa in preparation for the Ealing Eagles Santa Run, which would take place after the post-parkrun coffee & snacks. I had loaded the car up with our bikes on Friday evening so we could park the car close to The New Inn, which would be our Santa Run finish point, and then cycle down to Gunnersbury Park.
The assorted collection of Santa’s and runners lined up on the start line and we were once again off for our weekly 5km run together. However, we soon learnt the hard way that a cheap cotton Santa suit is amazingly conductive to heat retention and we were both hot by the 1km point. The Son began to peel off the layers, starting with his hat, and I had to take a slight detour just after half way so I could leave our clothes by the finish.
The Son got into his stride for the second half and left me for dead as the finish funnel came into view as my Santa trousers were not exactly ideal for running so he was able to dip under 30 minutes and I was just over. We both really enjoyed the run, especially being one of the many Santa’s, but next year in will be strictly shorts & short sleeved running shirts under the Santa outfit.
We finished off the parkrun day by pushing our bikes to the cafe, where we would chain them up and leave for collection later in the day, and refuelled ourselves with the odd sausage sandwich or two.
Running Dan parkrun result:
- parkrun time: 0:30:13
- Garmin time: 0:30:16
- Gun position: 152 / 188
- Gender position: 106 / 118
- Age category: SM35-39
- Age grade: 44.84 %
The Son parkrun result:
- parkrun time: 0:29:52
- Garmin time: not taken
- Gun position: 148 / 188
- Gender position: 104 / 188
- Age category: JM14
- Age grade: 51.23 %
