Babysitting, Flying, Running, Television and Jazz - Epic Weekend

This is a long old tale and I am sharing with you mainly to get it all down so I can read it myself in years to come because it was without doubt an epic weekend. It all started about 4 months ago when my good friend Eugene McLacken pinged me an email asking if I was up to see the group Television play a gig in Glasgow. Go look up Television on Youtube. I remembered them completely wrong and had visions of an ultra punk group so I immediately said yes. The main thing was I hadn't seen Eugene for a few years and I always enjoy when we do get together.

Roll on to last week and my darling wife who I love dearly, agreed to us babysitting our newest grandchild on Friday night. This would normally be great but I had a 6:30 flight in the morning. I was not going to get much sleep. I had also set my sights on taking part in the Glasgow Parkrun. This was renamed the Pollock Park Parkrun because there are now 4 parkruns in Glasgow. However Pollock was the first in Scotland and one of the first parkruns globally. It was going to be great. Except for the minor detail of not getting much sleep.
We eventually get home at 1am and I get to have 4 hours sleep before getting up to head to the airport. I get off without incident and the flight is only a couple of minutes late. When Eugene organised the weekend he

Myself and James Long

had the idea of getting a group of us together who had all worked together in Modus Media about 10 years ago. Bert van den Hoeven was going to be attending too and he had also liked the idea of taking part in the Parkrun. So much so that he agreed to drive out to Prestwick airport and pick me up. I came out of arrivals to see the Bert in his finest Dutch soccer shirt waving at me in the distance.

Bert was just a little the worst for wear as the Netherlands had given the Spanish a right drubbing of 5 - 1 in the world cup the previous night. I am not sure which one of us was in the worst condition. We set off under the control of a very dodgy satnav and meandered around the outer Glasgow area to find Pollock Park.

By the time we get there it is 9 o'clock and the run starts at 9:30. I need a toilet. Badly! I ask for directions and someone tells me how to get there. At least I think that's what they are telling me. I am not exactly sure they were speaking English. As I set off to where I think I was directed, someone shouts after me "its a 20 minute run". What? I manage to finally find it and there is a queue!! When I get back out I set off for the start and I spot what looks like a shortcut. I run up and through a muddy forest path which is really cool except I have no idea where I am going. After what felt like 10 minutes I arrive at a building which looks a little familiar. I am back at the bloody toilets!
This time I set off for the start and follow the road exactly. I push on because I know it is only a short time before the run starts. When I get back to the start I arrive just in time to hear someone shout Go!

I had also inadvertently started my running tracker, Endomondo, which captured wonderfully my route getting lost. You can see the route it tracked in the picture on the left. The small circle in the bottom of the picture. The start of the actual parkrun was about 100m before the point marked 2.
As I set off through the start I find myself running beside another lad, James Long, who quickly explains he is taking it easy as he has a 10k the next day. We have a grand old chat and we stuck together the whole way round. The pic above was captured by Claire Thompson and shows James on the left and myself showing off for the camera.
I have to say that Pollock park is really beautiful and if you have the chance pay a visit. The route for the Parkrun is superb but it has one nasty feature in one very steep hill that you get to run up twice aaaaaaargh!
The surprising thing is that despite the fact that I had less than 4 hours sleep, I don't feel bad. Add to this the fact that I actually ran over 3km before I started the main run. So while my time for the 5k was over 39mins I was really happy. I have the Fingal 10k coming up at the end of July and I am actually feeling good about the prospect of setting a reasonable time.

As with any Parkrun that I have run, this one was really well run and there was lots of encouragement around the course. With 346 participants it was a big field but it was well organised. I was looking at their summary results page where they list the number of volunteers and it is typically over 20 and that is fantastic. Parkruns are free events that rely entirely on the volunteers who come out every week to help running the event. I have done it a few times at my home run Malahide and it is always very rewarding.

Back to the epic weekend. Bert is waiting for me a the finish and together with Kenny Dickson another ex-Modus guy who also ran this morning we head into the Burrell which houses the Burrell Collection and a really nice cafe selling really scrumptious scones. 

We finish up and head to another friend Eugene's house where we meet up with Eugene and Jerome. Diane, Eugene's good lady wife has gotten some good eats in but I forgot the salmon and ask permission to fry up a couple of sausages and eggs. I want to have a good base for the rest of the day.

What follows is one of the best days out I have had in a long time. We make our way to city centre to check into our hotel and head off to a festival where gigs are running all weekend in various venues. Our destination is Television in concert. To be honest I thought they were very good but it was a little to soft for my taste. When we come out we are on a mission to find a bar that we can get into to watch the England game. However we pass a bar where we see some lads playing jazz and decide to give it a look.

Apparently they are all students at the college of performing arts and they are irritatingly good. There was a lad on the trombone who was really good with great stage presence who turned out to be only 17. After two numbers they call it a night and I am gutted but then the second act gets up. Now this was a small pub so try to imagine two saxophones, a trombone, two trumpets, a keyboard player, bass guitar, lead guitar and a drummer. I think there were more people playing than watching. Actually don't try to imagine, here is a pic.

That's the 17 year old lad on the left. It was an experience I won't forget soon. I have to say a huge thanks to Eugene for organising the weekend. He really went the extra mile. Particularly as we still caught the second half of the English game and he had graciously, as an Englishman, arranged for England to lose in order to please his guests, and Irishman, me, a Dutch man, Bert and a French man, Jerome.

Cheers lads for a great weekend.