Morecambe Prom parkrun - event 204

On the 17th August 2024 I ran the Morecambe Prom parkrun which was the 204th event held at the venue, my 197th parkrun and 119th different course I'd attended.

Gillingham's failure to get promoted last season condemned them to yet another season of league two football. A division this year which is made up predominantly of northern based teams and therefore a lot of travelling for anyone wanting to follow them on the road for away games.

When the fixture list came out and I realised that Morecambe and Fleetwood followed each other on consecutive week's in August I eyed an opportunity. We could spend a week up north in a caravan or cheap accommodation and take in both games as bookends to a trip.

However, the league cup first round tie was drawn a day later and we were drawn away to Swansea. So in the space of ten days Gillingham were on the road to South Wales and deepest Lancashire ànd of the three grounds I'd only been to one of them.

Initially then plans were made to visit Swansea and Fleetwood as both grounds neither Reaso or I had been to before. Morecambe we'd visited a few seasons back and hadn't particularly wanted to pay another visit.

But I really wanted to do Morecambe Prom parkrun and get a 'grail' as part of a Facebook group I'm a member of. There are multiple parkrunners around the UK that are also combining football supporter fandom with parkrun tourism and as part of the group different names have been developed for different achievements. Ticking off a match and taking in the closest parkrun to the ground on the same day is called a grail. I collected one at Woking a couple of weeks ago and am desperate to do more!

Having had a look up accommodation options I found a family Travelodge that was good value. It didn't matter whether there were two of us or four of us the price of the room was the same. Stephanie didn't fancy it and I asked Hayden if he wanted to take a friend. Of course he did and so we were to be joined by his friend Henry, who only a week earlier had completed his first junior parkrun. When we asked his parents if he could come with us he actually asked if we were going to do parkrun and was quite enthusiastic about the idea of joining in!

Friday was travel day and after picking Henry up at 8:30 we finally made it into Morecambe at 3:30 in the afternoon. It had been a long and slow drive up the M1 and M6 completing a long week of driving.

On Monday evening previously we drove to Bath to meet the Reasons in an Airbnb where we stayed the night. In the morning we drove west into South Wales and spent the day in Barry and taking in some of the locations for where they filmed Gavin and Stacey. In the early evening we drove into a wet and grey Swansea where we saw an under strength Gillingham team lose to a vastly superior Swansea side.

After the game we headed back to Bath where we stayed a second night before taking the scenic route home via Bourton-on-the-water and Jeremy Clarkson's Diddly Squat farm shop.

The previous few days of driving exploits were nothing compared to the long slog up to Morecambe, but once we were there and had checked in we could enjoy the afternoon and evening with plenty of pent up energy to spare.

We strolled along the promenade where the next mornings parkrun was due to take place and took in all of the sights including the famous Eric Morecambe statue. Henry asked lots of inquisitive questions which I had to quickly Google so I could pretend I knew the answers to! We walked along the Jetty and talked to the fishermen at the end.

After a few beers and a hamburger and chips for the boys and a chicken madras from a food truck for me we head back to the Travelodge where we all slept pretty well after a long day. 

In the morning we walked from the Travelodge to the start line which took about 25.minutes all in all. I could have driven, but I'd paid for 24 hour of parking in the car park and wasn't sure if moving the car would invalidate my payment. It was a lovely morning anyway and the boys didn't seem to mind.

Once we'd got to the start I recognised one of the participants talking to the volunteers in their pre-event huddle. It was a well known lady named Debra who is a bit of a celebrity in parkrun tourism circles. She has taken part in 170 parkruns and each one of them has been at a different event. Not only that, each of her venues has been reached by public transport from her home in Hull. Some of her weekend expeditions are legendary and she is a real inspiration to many who follow her travels.

I said hello to her and introduced the two boys. We'd already spoken to one another a few times on Facebook in posts about football and parkrun tourism so we had plenty of common ground to cover. But she was as lovely in real life as she comes across on social media and really was a highlight of the day.

Henry was enthusiastic about his first parkrun, whereas Hayden as usual wasn't so. I told both boys that I'd be running at a very slow pace and it was down to them to keep along with me and/or to catch up should they need to. My biggest worry beforehand was Henry and trying to slow him down to ensure Hayden was keeping up.

Parkrun has an under 11s rule where children have to be accompanied by an adult and so I thought I'd be torn between Henry wanting to run fast and Hayden wanting to walk and that I'd be fighting a battle between the two. Which is exactly what materialized... Except it was Henry the one who was lagging and Hayden who wanted letting off the leash!

It all started so well! From the start, the course is an out and back heading north along the promenade. We'd ran a nice and slow and steady kilometre. Up until the Midland hotel which sits at the bottom of a stone jetty that sticks out into the middle of the sea. The course on the way out goes along the Jetty to it's further point and back again rejoining the promenade path where it.continues to head north.

Hayden started to find his running shoes at this point where Henry's seemed to have fallen off. Despite my slow jog, Hayden was disappearing ahead of me and Henry was dropping back. We continued past the fair ground where the night before the boys had enjoyed happy hour wrist bands and all you can repeat rides. We past the Eric Morecambe statue and various parks and art installations until we got to the turnaround point. 

I had to slow Hayden down and tell him that he needed to wait for me and Henry as he needed to be with an adult. But Henry wasn't for moving, quite happy to trundle along at his own pace. Despite my words of encouragement and different tactics to get some pace into his legs I couldn't get him to catch up with Hayden up ahead.

So once we'd made our way back and with the finish a short while ahead I ran to the with Hayden and saw him across the line before sprinting all the way back to where Henry was. I then managed to get him moving for the last 600m where we finally crossed the line.

I finished in a time of 46:04 and was 441st out of a field of 473 participants. On another day the course could very well have been a PB course, certainly for Hayden if he'd had someone to run with. Talking to some people before the event I was warned about the famous wind that plagues the course. But we had absolutely perfect conditions. I'm fact, I felt a bit jealous listening to someone tell of their experiences in a howling wind and being sand blasted by loose material from the beach.

Fortunately our trip home was a much simpler and quicker affair with no traffic whatsoever. Fingers crossed for similar conditions this week as I go in search for another grail!