Ian Runs

This week, I decided to break with my normal adventures to attend the inaugural running of an event very local to me. As with Oaklands parkrun, I don't want to tour at the expense of everything else, and this seemed like a time when I would prefer to stay local-ish, and so today, I ran at BUry Fields parkrun, in Newport Pagnell! The area Newport Pagnell is located adjacent to Milton Keynes, separated by the M1 motorway. A settlement has been present on the site of the town for many years, predating the development of Milton Keynes by several hundred years - evidence of which can be found throughout the town. Bury Field, the location of the parkrun, is common land located to the north west of the town. The land has historically been used for grazing cattle - a practice which still continues to this day. The two fields are largely flat meadows (though there is a hill!), with some occasional woods, however, remnants of a never-completed Victorian railway line are present, cut...

After my really positive experience running at Northampton last week, something I was attributing to the well-attended, mature nature of the event, I decided that I wanted a similar experience for this week's extra event, and Milton Keynes fit the bill perfectly. The area Milton Keynes parkrun takes place in the East of Milton Keynes, tracing sections of both the Grand Union Canal, and Willen Lakes. The Grand Union Canal was formed from a number of waterways to connect London with Birmingham, with construction of the earliest developments beginning in 1793, and development of the latest chunks of development between Milton Keynes and Bedford being delivered in 2009. While the canal was originally built to improve trade and communication links, it is now a popular route for pleasure boaters, cyclists, walkers, runners, dog walkers and anglers. Willen Lakes form the largest purpose-built stormwater balancing lakes in the UK. Unlike most of the...

Today marked the start of my parkrun journey, and so I started as I mean to go on - by touring! As this was to be my first parkrun experience, I sought a deliberately low-key, reliable debut, which was also easily accessible from my home (though not my home event). Linford Wood seemed like the ideal candidate! The area Linford Wood parkrun takes place along the paths and redways of Linford Wood, in the north of Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes is the largest town in Buckinghamshire. Famous (or should that be infamous?) for both its roundabouts and its grid system, the town was purpose-built to relieve demand for housing in the South East of England. The town adopts the concept of a forest city, where local areas (within grid squares) are separated from through-traffic travelling along the grid by trees, bushes, hedgerows, and other fauna. For local residents, this provides both a sound-barrier between them and traffic, while also enclosing neighbourhoods, which in turn encourag...