Rothay Park parkrun
After a week of Keswick heat that felt more Mediterranean than Cumbrian, Saturday finally arrived with something resembling normal Lakeland weather. Still sunny, but a good ten degrees cooler — mid‑teens and perfectly civilised. I needed to be out of the house by 10am, which meant the usual parkrun arithmetic: if the run starts at 9, and the nearest options are all a decent drive away, then the alarm goes at 6:30. Add in the final tidy‑up and the ritual of getting bags down to the car, and it becomes a surprisingly busy morning.
I’d already taken the “big” bag to the car on Friday, partly to save time and partly because the access road is a narrow, mildly ridiculous squeeze that I didn’t want to negotiate more than necessary. So everything else went down in one trip.
As for parkrun choices, Keswick was off the list as I’d done that last year with Ami. Whinlatter remained firmly in the “nope” category because hills. Cockermouth didn’t appeal due to the parking situation. The Cumbrian coast was too far out. That left Penrith, Fell Foot, or Rothay Park in Ambleside. I hadn’t been through Ambleside at all this trip, so Rothay Park felt like the right call.
The drive down was easy and I arrived well early. I arrived so early that they’d only just started setting the course up.
The course itself is three laps with a bit of a pre‑amble. About half of it loops around the park, which is pleasant enough. The other half is an out‑and‑back across the end of a car park and then down a narrow gravel track beside the football pitch. Too narrow to pass, and not exactly scenic thanks to ongoing building works and a long metal fence running the length of it.
Still, I ran it reasonably quickly by recent standards (in 35 minutes) and Rothay Park became venue #75.
I didn’t stop for breakfast because I wanted to start the journey home.
Southbound
I left Ambleside before 10am and made good time down the M6. By 11:30 I was pulling into Charnock Richard Services for a leg stretch and some breakfast. Nothing dramatic, nothing stressful — just steady motorway progress.
From there it was the familiar route: M6, A50 through Stoke, then over Swarkestone Bridge and cross‑country back home. I rolled up at about 1:30pm and spent the afternoon doing my washing. A painless trip home, all things considered.
