One of the best things about taking on park run challenges is that you are often going to have to visit places far from home to complete them. Jubilee park run was going to be the venue for my 99th different park run and also the penultimate letter needed to complete A to Z. It is based in Spennymoor which is approximately four hours from my base.

That being the case we decided to make a three day trip out of the occasion. With stops in York and Durham. The highlights in York were the beautiful York Minster coupled with York Art Gallery. The gallery had a Monet exhibition with a picture on loan from the National Gallery in residence. They also have works from Warhol and Lowry.

The drive to Durham gave us the chance to take advantage of our National Trust membership at the atmospheric Fountains Abbey. There are also a number of deers in the nearby water gardens who seemed happy to have their photos taken. After park run (more of which shortly) we visited the Beamish Museum. This is called a living museum which is trying to preserve an example of everyday life in the urban and rural North East. We also took the opportunity to travel round the site on an original tram still in fine working order.

After travelling so far it was concerning that the weather forecast for the days beforehand for Spennymoor suggested thunder and lightning. Something that could lead to the event being cancelled. On the morning itself the rain initially fell heavily although there was no sign of anything more than that.

Given this however I was surprised to see one of the 46 participants arrive and then run in bare feet. I’d previously read a book that suggested this was a common practice for Kenyan runners but felt the terrain of Kenya would be an entirely different proposition to that in a park in Spennymoor on a rainy English morning.

The course itself is quite a tricky one and ranks high up on the list of harder park runs. It is a good one though and the run director and volunteers were excellent. When you consider that a decent portion of the people running were tourists like me keen to get their ‘J’ it definitely deserves to get a bigger turnout.

Having taken the obligatory photos with the park run sign itself it was time to turn my attention to next week. Queen Elizabeth park run will be the destination for my hundredth different park while also completing my A to Z of park run. It is another one a sizeable distance from my home location and will be the topic for next weeks blog.