Ian Runs

In an effort to continue targeting the eastern-most event, I decided that today would be the day I finally attended Thetford parkrun, having passed the town quite frequently while I was visiting the 10 or 11 East Norfolk events, including the 4 Norwich events; Norwich , Catton , Sloughbottom , and Colney Lane parkruns. The area Thetford has played several important roles throughout history, providing flint for use in tools since 2000BC, which saw the town grow to approximately the sixth largest town in Britain in 1086. The town was impacted greatly by the dissolution of the monastaries, which resulted in severe squalor in the town, with attempts in he 1800s to restore the town ultimately failing. The town eventually saw growth again in the 1980s as a result of an agreement with the London Country Council to relocate Londoners. Thetford Priory was one of the last casualties of the dissolution of the monastaries. Attempts by local politicians to repurpose the buildings owing to ...

This week I decided to make some more progress on the Fibonacci Sequence challenge by attending event number 5 of the new Mildenhall Hub parkrun! The area Mildenhall is a small market town located between Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds. The modern town's population is heavily influenced by the two airforce bases located on the outskirts of the town, with up to a third of the town's residents being born in USA! The town is also where the Mildenhall Treasure was discovered - a collection of Roman silverwar considered to be perhaps the most important and valuable Roman treasure find in Britain. Owing to its importance and value, the treasure is now on permanent display at the British Museum. To the west of the town lies Mildenhall Hub, a newly built community centre, and host of this week's parkrun event! The course One lap of the course follows an initial out-and-back section, followed a lap of the adjoining meadow, with runners following the route two and a hal...

This week I was planning to run another "B" event to get started on my East of England alphabet after realising that there was a possible "A" I could have run last week. There were a number of contenders to consider, however, when I realised that Brandon Country Park is set in a forest which makes the previous forests I've run in look small, there wasn't much more thought needed! The area Brandon Country Park is situated in Thetford Forest, near the towns of Brandon, and Thetford. Brandon has been populated for many centuries, with the local Grimes Graves excavation providing evidence of mining activity dating back to at least 2300 BC. The forest which now makes up the country park was planted in the early 1900s, when the flint industry slowed down as the site was previously used for flint extraction during the Napoleonic wars. The country park also houses Brandon House - the former residence of the Bloom family who used to own the land, now used as ...