This Christmas Day morning I had planned to do a dip in the freezing Lido in Parliament Hill with Jackie and Martin and a few other rather mad individuals. This was to be my first time in the Lido, fuelled by a wonderful sauna i had in Sweden with my friends Hanna and Jamie followed by a plunge into the freezing Baltic Sea a couple of weeks ago!
However, at last week’s Grovelands park run they mentioned that there would be a Christmas Day morning parkrun at a park close by called Oak Hill Park, so i just couldn’t resist!
I left the house at 8.15 and took the motorbike up to the park. The roads were so beautifully empty, and it was really nice to head north to the area that when i visit it I always feel so at home.
Oak Hill Park is a large park in East Barnet, in the London Borough of Barnet. Barnet is the most highly popluated of all the London boroughs, and the population currently stands at 384,774 inhabitants.
The weather was quite clear, yet very very cold, in fact it must have been 3-4 degrees, which is a lot lower than the forecasts had said, and i can tell you that i was freezing my proverbials off before the race started. That could also have been because i forgot to bring my motorcycle trousers, so i was in shorts on the bike…… just imagine the wind chill factor, and weep with me!
There were probably about 300 people there, maybe more, and there was naturally a pretty jovial atmosphere!
I got round feeling fresh and pain free….. what more could i ask for! And it was just great to have spent christmas day morning keeping fit. Then i went to my mums house for a well earned lunch!
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