Castletown parkrun | Talk of the town

Introduction

Is the castle crumbling? At castletown parkrun absolutely not. The parkrun spirit has the strength of a medieval castle in its prime. The wider castle of Ireland might be in trouble. The price of oil is climbing again and this time it’s the excise duty not Putins war. Julie is hearing tales of Barristers legal work going unpaid for months one of the early warning signs of a looming recession. The hospitality sector has had an increased VAT rate imposed. Our canteen prices jumped 15% in one night for a cup of coffee. We might have windfall money at the ready but when that wind does fall are we going to be back to describing how the arse fell out of the economy and acting like lightning has struck twice and no saw that coming? It feels like a parkrun in that you can see a recession coming for free and on a weekly basis but yet we run on hoping for the best rather than changing our behaviour.

Course

The Castletown parkrun course is a two lapper with a surface of gravel and bitmac for the most part. To start you’ll run towrds Casteltown House and then onto the left passed the duck pond. Next up is your first right turn around the trees where you’ll meet the Liffey for a about a kilometre. The path is narrow here and you’ll likely meet a few park users but that hardly seemed to matter when I visited everyone said good morning and ran, walked or cycled on. This parkrun seemed to live in harmony with the community which is not always the case. Back in my Glen River days one of our volunteers once overhead an elderly gentleman referring to Glen River park as a ‘no go area Saturday because of too many park runners’. It didn’t matter if he was wildly inaccurate. This passive antagonism seemed to be completely gone or never existed in Castletown. I’d love to know more about their community because I can’t help but feel they were a happy part of it. Finally, you’ll arch left and run up to the finish line. If it’s your first lap the volunteers will cheer “go faster on the next lap’ the cafe is about to open. The second lap was better than the first for me because I got to take more of the course in. How many courses have you run around with beautiful open country, an ancient house and a river included in it?

Stroller safe

It was hard to get the buggy around this course. The gravel and bitmac are tough surfaces. You’ll need to walk a lot and adjust course a lot but you can do it.

Live a Little

You’re going to be running with a castle on your right and a beautiful country field on the left enjoy the view.

Volunteers

Castletown parkrun is the first parkrun where we received a personal first timers welcome. Unfortunately I didn’t catch the volunteers name but her briefing was filled with current local news concerning the car park land being sold, historical information about the Castletown House and of course for Edward where the best spots on the course to see the ducks are. The RD brief was amazing referencing the current land purchase which could see Castletown House parkrun lose it’s parking from next week the RD reminded us that whilst this might seem like a threat the real threat was no volunteers next week. The confidence was reassuring. I’ve seen parkruns take their eye off the ball like this. No matter what rain or shine it’s a free, weekly, timed, social 5k run led by volunteers. Shoehorning in extra tasks is likely to take your focus away from the real focus ….COFFEE after parkrun.

If you’d like to volunteer it seems to be all about the coffee email castletown@parkrun.com.