parkrun Tourism
As I've mentioned many times before I am a parkrun tourist.
I love visiting as many different parkruns as I can, meeting the
communities, chatting to the organisers and discovering new places to run.
There is a growing community of parkrun tourists.
As the number of parkruns expands the distances between them shorten and
runners like me are taking advantage of this. There is a
dedicated Facebook group that you can join when you reach 20 different
parkruns. You can then purchase a special Cowl Cowell, a distinctive
black, white and yellow buff which members of the most events table buy to
allow themselves to be spotted by other tourists at home or away.
There are unofficial clubs like the Cowell Club
(100 different), the Fielding Club (250 different), Alphabeteers (parkrun
for each letter of the alphabet), regionnaires (all parkruns in a parkrun
region) and voluntourists (people who volunteer on their travels).
I am currently on 48 different parkruns (as of
24/09/2016) and am fast approaching my Cow (50 different, half a Cowell).
It has got harder over time as I have exhausted all parkruns locally to
me, and I am now faced with a 1hr+ drive to my nearest event not yet done.
If you haven't tried touring then I
strongly suggest it. It is an excellent way of meeting new people
and visiting new places.
Over the past few months I have visited a few locations and
here are my brief write-ups.
Yeovil Montacute – 25th June
Olivia and I were staying at relatives in Dorset and as I
had completed all Dorset parkruns I decided to drive a little further and pop
over to Yeovil Montacute. Montacute House is a National Trust property on
the outskirts of Yeovil. It is easy to find and has lots of free
parking.
The run starts at the front of the main house and heads up
the tree lined avenue before turning and heading down a second, smaller tree
lined avenue. It then loops up along the perimeter of the grounds before
heading all the way back down the main avenue towards the house. It is an
impressive sight, seeing the runners stretched out in front of you with the
house as the backdrop.
Once you get back to the house you turn left and start the
larger loop. This takes you all the way around the outside of the grounds
and uphill to the end of the avenue, but instead of running back down towards
the house you continue following the fence.
The route has a long downhill stretch (over a km) which is a
nice speedy section, but a little technical at points, so care is needed.
At around 4.5km there is a wicked little hill which destroys the legs
just before the start of the sprint finish. The run finishes outside of
the house.
The terrain is a mix of grass and trail and so trail shoes
are a must in winter, although when we went it was dry and sunny and road shoes
were fine. The café afterwards is excellent and the bacon sarnies are
superb! We stayed around for a while and helped out with token sorting
and chatted to the core team. An excellent parkrun and in my top 5 that I’ve
visited.
Bath Skyline - 2nd July
We were in Bath for a wedding so Olivia and I popped on our
trainers and headed over to Bath Skyline parkrun. Parking is at the Bupa
hospital (as per course page instructions), is easy to find and also houses the
loos (which are a good half a km walk from the start line, so go when you
park!).
The run is set on the skyline trail and as the name suggests
it affords cracking views over Bath from points on the run. It starts on
the main path and, as it is fairly narrow, it makes for quite a congested
start. The course itself is a large figure of 8. The first loop
drops down into some woodland (from which you get the best view of the city)
and then up a series of fairly steep steps. You then emerge into a little
meadow before heading back down the path towards the start.
The route then peels left and through some more woodland
(thankfully flat) before going back out into the fields for the rest of the
large loops. You then re-join the main path for the final km downhill
into the finish. Even in Early July the course was muddy and at points I
wish I had my trail shoes. There was flapjack at the finish and the core
team were welcoming and friendly.
Lymington Woodside - 23rd July
Lymington is a relatively new parkrun and this was just
event number 3. As the name suggests the run is based in Woodside Gardens
in Lymington and it was a hot, sunny day when Sarah, Elsie and I decided to
visit.
The course started off on a set of playing fields with a
small loop all on grass around a couple of oak trees. From there we
headed into a small section of meadow land and into the ornamental gardens
(which were beautiful when we were there). In the gardens you join the
tarmac path and follow it round past the kids play area and back out on the
grass near the start finish.
We now followed the perimeter of the field, past the
skatepark and into a second field, from where we looped back to the pavilion
area. We did a second large loop before another smaller loop in the main
field and into the start finish. Sound complicated? It wasn't.
It is well marked and well marshalled.
The route is a mix of surfaces and I think it may be a trail
shoe course in winter. It is not overly busy and is a fun course to run.
Unfortunately when I went the pavilion was not quite built yet so there
was no pre run wee or post run coffee, however I am assured it will be opening
shortly. It was nice to catch up with fellow tourist Paul Jeffrey (writer
of an excellent running based blog "The Ramblings of an Idiot"). Paul
has recently reached the most events table and joined the uber-tourist
group.
Sarah and I headed down to the quay side for breakfast at a
greasy spoon and a cuppa. It is less than a mile to the front and on a
summers day it is an absolutely beautiful place to sit and eat brekkie!
(unoffficial) parkrun Lac de Montriond, France - 13th August
Sometimes, despite best intentions, it is just not
possible to get to a parkrun. Our family holiday this year was in Les
Gets in the Alps and the nearest parkrun was nearly 5 hours drive away in
Dijon so instead of a 10 hour round trip Olivia and I decided we would form our
own unofficial parkrun at a lake near our holiday apartment.
The lake was Lac de Montriond, near Morzine. Set at
just over 3,000ft altitude it is a beautiful blue, green lake set between
the towering mountains of the high Alps. The lake is just around
1.6km long and a few hundred meters wide. It also has a small
mini-lake for kids to swim in at one end.
At 10am local time (9am GMT) we lined up at one end
of the lake and set-off for our unofficial parkrun. The route
(heavily improvised as we went) was one clockwise lap of the small lake,
before setting off on an anti-clockwise lap of the large lake. At
the far end of the lake there was a small trail loop which we ran twice
before continuing round the lake. Back at the start-finish we did two more laps
of the small lake before a short sprint finish in to complete our 5km.
I had worn my Apricot Winchester top (and Cow Cowl) and
Olivia had her 10 t-shirt on. When we finished we met a cyclist who is
normally a parkrunner at Worsley Woods parkrun...he had seen us running,
recognised the shorts and came over to chat. Just shows the global reach
of the parkrun community!!
I can highly recommend the route if you are ever
in the area.
Harcourt Hill - 17th September
Due to summer holidays and various different things going on
I hadn't had an opportunity to tour for a while but I finally had a weekend
with no plans and so headed up the A34 with Olivia to Harcourt Hill parkrun.
Set in the grounds of Oxford Brookes university, at the
campus sports centre, there is ample free parking as well as all the facilities
you would expect at a sports centre; loos, changing facilities, showers etc.
Before the run we chatted to the team setting up and they
talked us through the course and gave us some of the history. It was the
101st running of the event and ended up being their attendance record of 154.
Compared to the 870 I had run with at Poole a few weeks before it was
nice to be at a smaller event.
The briefing was hampered by a broken megaphone but we
needn't of worried as an army of volunteers guided us round the course. In
addition there were wooden signposts every few hundred yards and at all key
junctions which pointed the way and told us how far (in KM) we had gone on Lap
1 and Lap 2. It was excellent.
The course itself was a two lapper around the edge of the
sports fields. It started by the ruddy and football pitches, went round
the golf course, through some woods, round another footy pitch, through a
field, past the tennis courts and back to the start. Twice round was
5km.
The ground is mainly grass and trail but it is excellent to
run on with very few uneven footings. The team were excellent and
supportive of both myself and Olivia and there seemed to be a really good
community feel about the run. Highly recommended!
Upton Court - 24th September
For the first time in ages Sarah and I had no plans on a
Saturday and as the weather was looking like it was going to be a nice morning
we decided on a day trip to Windsor. This meant I could visit Upton Court
parkrun for the first time.
Set a couple of miles north of Windsor and just a short
drive from the M4 junction it was perfect for our needs. The car parking is
free and plentiful and so we could leave the car there whilst we visited the
historic towns of Eton and Windsor.
The park itself is a large expanse of grass with a central copses of trees and a good sized kids play area. There is a tree lined avenue that give an excellent view down towards Windsor Castle in the distance.
The run started off at the rugby club in the South East of the park. It is a two lap course mainly on grass with the aforementioned avenue and a path into the start/finish area the only sections of tarmac. The first lap incorporated an additional smaller field, again all on grass. The park also has km markers.
Despite the size of the park the run itself had just over 100 runners, which sounds like the average for this time of year. It was surprising given its location (close to both Windsor and Slough), free parking and facilities. Especially as just up the road Black Park regularly gets 4 times the number of runners.
Following the pre-run briefing we lined up and were off! The first section of grass is slightly up hill before levelling off across the top of the field. From there you head down the avenue and turn into the additional, first lap only, field. Once round the field you rejoin the cycle path and head back towards the start/finish by the rugby club. The second lap is the same but without the additional field you can build up some speed going down the avenue which you can maintain along the path into the finish, making it a fairly quick end to the run. Once finished scanning is in the rugby club house and sets were provided on the scanners table.
The club house was also home to the catering facilities where tea, coffee and bacon and eggs bars were available. At just £3 for a bacon bap and a large cuppa it was very reasonable and also very tasty. On a nice day there is seating outside, but equally in the depths of winter there is plenty of room inside too. The club house also contains toilets and changing facilities (including showers, although I didn't see anyone using them so not sure if we could've).
The one detractor from the day was that one of the faster runners shouted at my wife to "get off the path, runners coming through". Sarah was as far over on the path as she coulee been with a pushchair and his overly aggressive shouting was unnecessary. As per the pre-run briefing please be considerate of other park users!
Having said that, all in all the trip to Upton Court was thoroughly enjoyable, well organised and generally very friendly and welcoming. It was made all the better by me bagging my fastest parkrun time of 2016.
Next couple of weeks
Next week I will be running at Oxford (as part of a stag do) and the following week I hope to be at Chichester for my 50th different!! I would like to try and build on this time and see if i could possibly get back into the low end of the 23 minute range by the end of the year. Time will tell!
Following the Thames Trot I reverted back to focussing on
preparing for the London Marathon.
However shortly into my training my calf problems of 2015 flared again
and I was unable to train. I dropped out
of the Brentwood half and a number of other planned preparation races and was
soon struggling to do more than parkrun on a weekly basis. It become abundantly clear that I was never
going to be in shape to do London justice so I regrettably had to
withdraw. 
I have also volunteerd 24 times (15 as run report writer, 1
token sort, 1 tail run, 3 new runners briefs and 4 set-up and I was lucky
enough to meet Paul Sinton-Hewitt, parkrun founder, and chat to him briefly
about parkrun. 
I have a few proudest moments this year; reaching 50
different events (my half Cowell).
Reaching 100 parkruns and celebrating it with family and my running club
friends. Reaching 25 volunteer stints and earning my aubergine shirt. My proudest moment though is encouraging my
daughter Olivia to really enjoy her running and to embrace parkrun, and also
encouraging my nephew to start going weekly.
Both have come on leaps and bounds and I can’t wait to see how they
develop as runners over the coming years.
In 2017 I would like to run 40+ times again and also try and
visit another 15-20 new venues. Olivia
is aiming to get her volunteers shirt and her Cow Cowl (for reaching 20
different parkruns), as well as dipping beneath 30 mins, so I’ll be helping her
achieve that. I would also like to visit
my first international parkrun…but we’ll see about that!
