Christmas Day at Roundhay parkrun

The presents have all been unwrapped. The kids are playing with their new wares and it’s not even 8am. When this is the case then it would be rude not to do a special Christmas Day parkrun. This year that was exactly the case as I headed for the second time to Roundhay parkrun to start the day with a 5k.

I’d previously run once on Christmas morning back in 2021 when my brother in law joined me for Pontefract parkrun. But a combination of various winter illnesses and my general running malaise the past couple of years meant I had yet to add to that record. However, with us again staying with family and no plans in the morning, as soon as my wife mentioned the idea, running in Christmas Day was definitely on the cards.

My original plan was to head to Rothwell parkrun. It’s marginally closer to where we were staying and it would have extended my P-index to the heavy heights of 3! However, my brother also lives in Leeds and when he said he’d be up for Christmas Day parkrun, it made much more sense to run at Roundhay which is a stones throw from where he lives.

I had run Roundhay parkrun with my brother once before. It was actually my first “proper” bit of tourism. That was over 7yrs ago though so I was looking forward to doing it again. Having driven over and parked up (I was surprised that payment was still needed on a Bank Holiday), I headed to the park and met up with my brother. I couldn’t quite believe how busy it was. There were Santa hats everywhere.

The volume of people meant I didn’t really hear much of the briefing but before I knew it we were headed part way down the hill to the start. In total 796 people finished the run today which (looking at the results history) was a big record for the event – last year’s Christmas run had held the record at 732. This volume of people did make it a little crowded to start but that only helped me stifle my speed.

I had forgotten quite how hilly the course is. It is a three lapper which means three trips up the big hill. I do hate hills and recently when I was fortunate to find myself running in Cyprus, I’d found them even harder so I wasn’t too eager to be facing them so soon. I did manage to drag myself each time though, although as I ended the second lap I did hear the shout go up of “Here comes the first finisher”. On my watch I was done in 25mins which felt nice and fitting for the 25th December, but my official time was actually given 3s faster at 24:57 and a finishing position of 167th.

Unfortunately there was no time to hang around after as both my brother and I had our families back at home. But it was a lovely start to Christmas Day and, especially now my kids are that little older, I really didn’t feel like I missed out. I’m sure we will be up in Leeds again next year so can easily see this becoming more and more of a tradition for me.