Brrr - chilly!

Some NENDY tourism!

14/11/26 : Stanborough 

The parkrun obsessive in the family has decreed that the second Saturday of the month is reserved for a trip to somewhere we've not been before - and it was my choice this month and I've decided that NENDY is going my default selection (because it saves thinking). For those not in the know (which included me until I Googled it recently), NENDY stands for Nearest Event Not Done Yet - which resulted in a carload of us (me (121st parkrun), both daughters (39 & 4) and the eldest's boyfriend, Luke(10)) to head 10km to the Stanborough Lakes area which is halfway between Welwyn and Hatfield. 

And given that two of us had been at Noah Kahan the night before and muggins here volunteered to pick them up from the station afterwards, it's possible we weren't feeling exactly tip-top - but fortunately the temperature of -1 degrees perked us right up on the walk from the car park (close but expensive) to the start line, which followed a very pretty stream before heading through an amusingly low underpass which wasn't really wasn't designed with Luke's six foot plus frame in mind.

And it might have been cold, but it didn't half make the start line look pretty - and it also made the pre-race briefing pleasing brief. It was also, in what I believe is a first for me, before the race was due to start - most other places take 9:00 as a rough guideline to start wandering over for a vague chat, but they don't do things that way here (not when it's -1, anyway). People were at the start line and listening to the minimum required information at 8:58 (we didn't announce ourselves as visitors from far-flung St Albans but well done to the people who'd come all the way from West Cornwall) and everything was done so rapidly that a pause was required to wait for the clocks to tick over to 9:00 - and we were off!

Oh, we're off up the hill which stretches majestically into the distance - sigh. It was also a hill with quite a few holes in it, but the race setup team had done an excellent job in marking the most perilous obstacles with cones - they were impressively thorough in their coverage, which gave an interesting artistic impression from a distance. It wasn't too bad a hill though with an elevation of twelve metres and not too steep - and once you got to the top it was mostly flat or downhill for the rest of the lap (most/all? of which is on grass), which was lovely with some great scenery through the trees and along the side of the lake. And you just have to do three laps and then you have a short (uphill, of course) sprint to the finish.

All of which gave me the impression it was going to be a fast course and my Strava time confirmed that at the end because it was a very pleasing 25:05 for the 5k, which was a new personal best by 18 seconds. And yes, of course, I fixated on the five seconds - the ground, although solid underfoot, was somewhat slippy with leaves and frost and the air temperature also really didn't make for a fast start. If only, eh?!? However, when my parkrun email came through (at a pleasingly prompt 10:54) my official time was 24:59 (age-graded 63.11%) which is 28 seconds fastest than my previous (at HKGVPF) and I was 46th overall (out of 159 runners, which felt like a good number for the course) and fifth in my age category. I didn't manage to complete any challenges (or even make significant progress towards any of them) but overall, it's fair to say I'm very pleased with the result!

There is a coffee shop at the end, which I'm sure is very nice but I'm afraid it was just too cold to hang around today - we bundled into the car and turned on the heaters to head home for hot drinks and showers. But we all agree we're fans of this well-organised (many thanks for the 9:00 start) event and we'll be back because this is up there with Cassiobury for my favourite local fast courses to help me get my Strava under 25 minutes - Cassiobury is flatter, but this is certainly prettier and less crowded. 

I also have to say that on mornings such as this I really appreciate the job the marshals do - it takes a special sort of person to stand out in a field in freezing cold weather purely for the benefit of others. I'm also going to give a special shout-out to the guy at Haribo Corner (it even had a sign) - when I expressed uncertainty as to why they'd call it that, Luke pointed out that it was possibly because he was handing out Haribos (yeah, I'd completely missed that).