This is where I am staying this week and I thought I would share the name as my blog’s title because of its similarity to parkrun, although “park inn” does have a space so they are unlikely to get a law suit from Paul Sinton-Hewitt any time soon! The particular park inn I have been staying in is in Telford and that is where I have been exploring this week.
Telford is a fascinating place; a “new” town even though it is steeped in industrial revolution history. It has a fantastic Town Park and some amazing countryside round and about. The only complaint that I have is that it, in common with all the new towns that I know, is that it is hiddiously pedestrian-unfriendly. The town planners want to separate pedestrians from traffic and I get that. The problem is that what they do is firstly remove the pavements (or sidewalks as our American friends would say) and then take the pedestrian pathways off in all sorts of different directions, none of which lead to where you want to go. It’s impossible to tell where a path will take you so you end up following the roads, which is very dangerous since there’s no pavement! The planners have therefore achieved the complete opposite of their objective and ended up making it more dangerous for the walker or runner!
The one solution I have is to go running at 5 AM in the morning which pretty much avoids all traffic so you can run through town whereever you want, willy-nilly! And, have you noticed, it’s getting DARK in the morning. At 5 AM it seemed like it was before dawn which is another reason to avoid going down dark isolated pathways although by the time I ran back through the Town Park it was light enough.
Tomorrow morning I shall try a different direction!
“as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way’ – ‘a voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.” ’” Mark 1:2-3 NIVUK
http://bible.com/113/mrk.1.2-3.nivuk
Marathon Mann 