On Saturday 28 May I pedaled to Shipley Country parkrun with my husband, Ian.
I hadn’t done much tourism in the weeks prior. Two weeks before, I’d volunteered as a barcode scanner at Beeston parkrun…
Then on 21 May I’d stayed in Beeston again to celebrate my 100th parkrun with friends and family!
Pedal to Shipley Country Park
We set a 5.45am alarm so that we’d have plenty of time to ride the 12ish miles to Shipley Country Park, allowing for any issues on the way. This turned out to be a good idea…
It was a lovely sunny morning. We set off from home and after cycling through our hometown of Beeston joined the Erewash Valley Trail at the Erewash Canal.
After a few miles we transferred onto the Nutbrook Trail – a lovely 10-mile traffic-free route between Long Eaton and Heanor.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t realised that part of the Trail was closed due to some works relating to a new housing development. There was a map with an alternative route attached to the fence, but no diversion signs anywhere so we had to do a bit of Google Maps consultation on the way.
Our new route took us up above the new development which is on the site of the old American Adventure theme park I’d visited several times as a child. It was where I went on my first ever upside-down roller coaster (The Iron Wolf) and I also remember my mum volunteering me to be in the Wild West show once which was more terrifying than the rides!
We got back onto the route on the edge of the Country Park and ended up arriving just before 8.30am.
Shipley Country parkrun
We had plenty of time to use the facilities and get changed. The toilets are at the visitor centre, close to the start. It was at this point Ian realised he hadn’t packed any pants(!) and so he was in two minds about whether to run in his bib shorts (with cycle padding) or sit the parkrun out. In the end he decided to go for it, and apparently the padding didn’t really cause any issues – phew!
There are Sheffield stands you can lock your bike to by the visitor centre, but that’s a short walk and out of sight of the start, so we locked our bikes together next to some wooden fencing nearer the start instead.
We met up with friends Dan and Kate, who are Shipley regulars and introduced us to some of the core team. Dan is in training for the Robin Hood Half Marathon which he is running to raise money for Boccia England, and Kate was volunteering giving out the finish tokens.
Dan had missed my 100th last week, so asked the Run Director to give me a shout out for my 101st which he kindly did.
It was a lovely sunny morning and there were 140 runners. Looking through the results I think this is a fairly average number for this parkrun, which usually has between about 120 and 170.
I finished in 28.14 and was 57th overall and 10th female.
The course itself is one big lap with a two-lap loop near the end, which includes going up the big hill twice!
We joined Dan and Kate in the café for breakfast, which was delicious and helped to fuel us up for our ride home.
The Pedal Home
We took a different route back so that we could visit Bennerley Viaduct – a former railway viaduct built in 1877. It’s over a quarter of a mile long, making it the longest wrought iron viaduct in the country. It was re-opened to walkers and cyclists in January.
The views were amazing!
We crossed from one end to the other and re-joined the Erewash Valley Trail on the other side. There’s a fantastic accessible ramp at the end where we went up, but it’s a bit trickier getting down at the other end as there are steep steps with a narrow bike gully.
We carried on along the Erewash Valley trail and back home. We had to do a bit of scrambling through a fallen tree on the way. As anyone who read my last blog about my Pedal to Conkers parkrun will know, this isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to this situation!
Our route there was 11.5 miles and our route home was 14.3 miles so a total of 25.8 miles to get there and back. A most enjoyable morning out, and a parkrun I’ll definitely return to!