Watermeadows parkrun - event 252

On the 19th July 2025 I ran the Watermeadows parkrun which was the 252nd event held at the venue, my 245th parkrun and 163rd different course I'd attended.

Visiting different parkruns has always been about keeping my running motivation going. I figure that if I keep going back to my home event week after week, I'd lose interest and miss a week which would lead to two weeks and before I know it parkrun becomes something I used to do.

Tourism has always been about ticking things off, all the events in Kent, letters of the alphabet, closest parkruns to football grounds and arbitrary numbers. But on Saturday for the first time I visited a parkrun where it actually felt like it meant something, a personal homage to someone I loved deeply.

My Nan and Grandad lived in Towcester when she was diagnosed with cancer, eventually succumbing to the disease in 2005. I remember vividly the last time I visited her, knowing she wasn't long to live and her expressing her sadness that she'd never know my children. 

17 months after her death, Oliver my eldest son was born and 6 years later Phoebe was born and carries the middle name Ann after my Nan. We also had Hayden, our little surprise in 2015 so that's three characters she never got to met, let alone my sister and her army of 6.

So when Mum planned to spend a weekend in Towcester commemorating twenty years since Nan passed away, I knew that I wanted to make Watermeadows parkrun part of the itinerary. Running at Nan and Grandads local event would have been something I'd have done had I been spending time with my grandparents had they still been alive. 

It didn't matter what number event it was, or any other arbitrary attribute I use to select my weekly parkrun venue I was going to run at Watermeadows - no matter what.

Even the weather wasn't going to stop me, although it did it's best to try!

After weeks of hot and humid weather, it was inevitable that storms were going to follow. Multiple weather warnings for thunderstorms across the south east meant that multiple cancellations were posted on Friday evening and  early into Saturday morning.

We woke up to torrential rain and dark grey clouds, but a look at the event Facebook page hadn't indicated any reason to cancel.

We were staying outside of Silverstone village, another place that Nan and Grandad used to live. I remember visiting for a weekend and hearing F1 cars scream around the nearby circuit back in the days when testing wasn't quite so regulated.

Being ten minutes drive away from a parkrun event was a little confusing for me as I'm normally now leaving earlier and earlier in the mornings as the events I'm visiting are further and further away. I also needed to get petrol and stopped off at the services enroute, but even so I arrived super early and was in the carpark ready to run by 8;20.

Because the rain was coming down so hard I waited in the car for as long as possible before making my way to the start. I quite like getting to events early as it gives me an opportunity to have a little explore around and check out the course. But with the weather as bad as it was I didn't want to get soaked through before the run had even started.

Watermeadows parkrun is a four lap, clockwise course on public grounds behind the main high street on the A5. The course is flat and all on firm paths, mostly fine gravel, some tarmac with some parts of the path containing coarser gravel which wasn't particularly nice to run on.

After the briefings had taken place, huddled beneath the trees near the start. We made our way out from beneath the canopy into the open where the start and finish lines were located. We must have been blessed by the parkrun weather fairies again as although it was raining the intensity of it had dropped off significantly. By the end is participants were certainly wet, but we wasnt drenched through to our underpants which was a concern of mine at one point.

Our Premier Inn informed us on Friday night that breakfast was served until 10am, which I found surprising as they normally serve until 11. But fuelled and motivated by a desire to get back to the hotel by the time the bacon got cold I managed to go around in a reasonable good time.

I finished in 96th place out of a field of 167 participants in a time of 29:40, my 3rd fastest time of what's been a fairly sluggish year times wise.

It was a strange event, not for the location or the course or anything like that. But mentally feeling close to my grandparents again and reflecting on life twenty years ago when my Nan was still around. I'm always drawn to my last conversation with her and think about what life would have been like between her and my kids.

Later that day when we were at the cemetery my mum.gave me a photo. I'd never seen it before, but remember it being taken. It was taken that day, the last day I spent with her. I couldn't work out whether to laugh or cry, but it was exactly as I remembered it, unbellished by the passage of time. 

Proof that some kinds of love really are eternal.