Celebrating Will’s 100th milestone at Riverfront parkrun
4th February 2023, written by Fi Lang
Another Saturday, another parkrun! However, this was more special than usual as it was a GWR parkrun tourism weekend, and we were off en-masse to Newport. Most importantly, it was also Will Purcell’s 100th parkrun, and there was now only 5k between him and his black 100th parkrun t-shirt!
Having arrived, I could see the blue hoodies of of fellow GWR runners in the distance arriving from the train station, and knew I was in the right place! With nearby Tredegar parkrun still closed (it re-opens again next weekend!), it was busier than usual. In contrast to the notorious hill of Ashton Court, this was a dream parkrun course; an out and back route on a pancake flat pavement alongside the River Usk.
It was no surprise then that there were a lot of happy GWR finishers! John Cox was third male in 18:27, finishing a mere seven seconds ahead of Dan Jones, fourth male. Will Gillett got a new PB of 19:28, and another one went to Nadia Kottegoda who, looking like she’d hardly broken sweat, finished in 21:14 with Callum Moore and Kelly Dicks pacing her to the finish line with exactly the same time.
As usual Ian Haynes and myself were running at a similar pace, pushing each other along. When Ian stopped to tie his shoelace towards the end, I thought that was it, but he had a storming finish, powering to the line, and finishing two seconds ahead! I got a course PB, but it was only the second time I had run the course, so really not much to write home about! Alice Doggrell was taking it easy with 21 miles to run the following day, so I was slightly higher up in my age category than usual! Our ringleader Mark Watts, who does amazingly in organising our parkrun tourism excursions, finished bang on 26 minutes.
With Will having reached his 100th parkrun milestone in what would have been a very comfortable 21:06 for him, we were off for brunch! We got to the very busy Drago Lounge, just over the road from the parkrun, and were fortunate that despite there being eleven of us we were able to get a table in ‘Kelly’s Corner’! A reference from the SMM podcast which I must catch up on!
Will had very kindly baked some cookies for us to celebrate his 100th milestone. On leaving Drago Lounge, Ian was complementing the cookie and asking what was in it. When he was told peanuts, it was immediately discarded on the news that he had a nut allergy! Thankfully Ian experienced no adverse reactions and made it to the Rovers game which was his next port of call!
As ever it was a super fun and inclusive morning to kick-off the weekend and the start of the Six Nations. All are welcome and we encourage you to come and join us when you can! A poll goes out on Facebook at the end of each month to decide the next destination, which is always the first Saturday of each month. Hopefully see you there next time!
