Barking parkrun

Please note that there is a new, more comprehensive write-up for Barking parkrun, here:

Link: Barking parkrun 2023 write-up

If you are on this page to read the 2012 blog, please continue...

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This was the last parkrunday of 2012, which meant that it was my last chance to attempt to get back into the sub-20 parkrun club before the end of the year. (I have run a sub-20 5k this year but it wasn't a parkrun).

So after way too little sleep I dragged myself out of bed and twenty minutes later entered Westminster tube station to head into East London, this time I took the District line to Barking.

Upon exiting the station, I headed off in search of Barking park. It's not hard to find and within 5 minutes I was strolling along its paths wondering how I would pass the next 50 minutes (it was 8.10am).

The park is a tad deceiving. From the road all you can see are the open grass areas and a few buildings in the distance, but once you get into the heart of the park you find tree lined meandering paths and a boating lake. Apparently there is also a light railway in the park but I didn't spot it.

Anyway, shortly after arriving in the park, I bumped into a lady called Vicky, who was putting out the course signs. We walked part of the course and talked about parkrun (of course). At 8.45am I headed off to get changed before joining the rest of the runners at the registration area.

At 9am we were lead to the start line and then sent off to get our parkrun fixes for the day. The recent rain had fortunately decided to take a break, so it was dry. However, this was replaced with strong winds (not ideal considering my goal for the day).

The route takes you towards some allotments. You then swing a left and run almost the entire length of the boating lake before a few twists and turns in the traditional Victorian section of the park. Lastly you go around the edge of the playing fields and back towards the registration area. As it is a two lap course, you then do it all over again.

The course is as flat as they come and all on tarmac. In addition to the normal parkrun course signage, the organisers also draw arrows and other helpful things such as 'HW' at the half-way point in chalk on the ground.

Back to my goal of the day - sadly, I didn't manage to break 20 minutes (20:03). However, I was the first finisher, which was very nice indeed.

I spent a bit of time at the finish area chatting while the rest of the runners came in and before I knew it it was time to leave. I was almost tempted to go along to the post-run coffee and results, but I needed to get back home to get ready to go out with the ladies.

In summary, this is a very friendly parkrun with a great community and brilliant volunteers. The course was a pleasure to run and I would definitely like to return in the future.

Official event report

Christmas Day 2012 parkrun Double

I woke up pretty early on Christmas Day. The first thing I did was to listen to the rain hitting the window of my parents' house, where we were staying for Christmas. At one point I even heard a few cracks of thunder, fortunately it passed pretty quickly.

The ladies (mrs7t and lime) were still fast asleep and not likely to be waking up until at least 10.30am, so I didn't feel too bad when I crept out of the house to take part in two Christmas Day parkruns..

Hilly Fields parkrun

The first one was Hilly Fields, this was my second visit to this parkrun. It's not a fast course, in fact it's one of the toughest in London, but I love it. At 8.20am I arrived and spent the next 30 minutes sitting in the car watching the rain. It was absolutely tipping it down. Then by some miracle I saw a patch of blue sky, a few minutes later the rain eased and then stopped.

I joined the 20-strong group of parkrunners at the meeting point and at 9am we were off for three roller coaster ride laps of the appropriately named green space. Although, the roller coaster had changed into something more like one of those water rides. We were advised that this was a parkrun-lite - there were no direction signs or marshals on the course.

The grass sections, especially at the lowest point of the route, had suffered from all the recent rain and were waterlogged. In fact, it was more like running through a stream at points. Luckily I was expecting this and was wearing my trail shoes for extra grip on the muddy grass and had packed extra socks and shoes.

Three laps complete and I crossed the finish line. The rain had held off for the entire run! I had my barcode scanned straight away and thanked the volunteers as I ran off towards the car to make the short trip down to parkrun number two.

As I was driving along, the rain returned. It was heavy. Ten minutes later I arrived at the next venue...

Dulwich parkrun

I parked up on a side street next to Dulwich park, it was still absolutely chucking it down. I had already changed my top, socks and, as this parkrun is run entirely on tarmac paths, I had also changed into my road shoes. It's pretty flat so is a good course to run a decent time.

I found the toilet, which I was happy to find open. It was an excellent place to shelter from the rain until 9.55am when I made my way over to the start point. There were a lot more people at this run (just over 50) and the group I found myself standing with contained runners that were also running two parkruns. Some had come across from Bromley and I believe some others from Brockwell.

The rain did not ease off at all during the run and some sections had shallow streams running across them. But it was a lot of fun running in the heavy rain. The course is really easy to follow, it's just three anti-clockwise laps on the main path that runs around the park. After the first lap I really started to push hard and kept going until the very end.

Completely drenched from head to toe, I headed back to the car and then back to my parents' house to get the next part of Christmas underway. The volunteers were the heroes of the day and I am extremely grateful to them all for giving up their Christmas Day mornings and standing in the rain all so that we could get our Christmas parkrun fix.

Valentines parkrun (2012 visit)

Please note: An updated blog will be online shortly.

The journey to Valentines park was relatively straight forward. I took the Jubilee line to Stratford and then the central line to Gants Hill. From the station it's only a five minute walk to the park.

It is worth leaving a little extra time because the start of the run is on the opposite side of the park, so in total it might take just over ten minutes to reach the start area.

The park is really nice. There are quite a lot of water features - even more than usual on the day I visited as we were in the middle of a period of heavy rain.

Once I had found my way over to the start area I bumped into someone that looked like a parkrunner. We chatted briefly and then he invited me to join him on his warm-up lap, where he gave me a tour of the course.

When we arrived back at the parkrun registration area I headed off to the toilets to get changed and then chatted to a few more runners while we all huddled under a shelter until the inevitable moment arrived.

The route consists of two anti-clockwise laps on tarmac paths with a few metres on grass at the very end as you enter the finish funnel. You pass some of the water features and even run across a couple of bridges.

The course rises ever-so-slightly over the first half of each lap and then descends during the second half. It's not really that noticeable and I would put this down as a flat course.

I hadn't been having the best week (a visit to the hospital and no training) so I decided to take the first lap easy and push a little harder on the second if I felt ok.

Because it was raining I had the added disadvantage of not being able to see properly as the rain had completely covered my glasses, then when I tried the clear them I just ended up smudging them.

Anyway, I hit the half-way point and still felt ok so pushed a little harder on lap two.

After finishing my 80th parkrun (also my 50th of 2012), I immediately got changed out of my completely drenched running kit and into my almost-completely-drenched tracksuit bottoms and jumper.

I left straight after this, partly because I hadn't started Christmas shopping and it was stupidly close to Christmas day and partly because I was shivering uncontrollably and needed to get home and into some dry clothes.

In summary, another really nice parkrun with really friendly runners. The park was lovely even with rain and dark skies, so I'm guessing that it is a stunning park when the flowers are in bloom and the sun is shining!

Riddlesdown parkrun eighty

This weekend I took a break from touring to run at my home parkrun, Riddlesdown. We managed to persuade my mum and brother to come along and look after Matilda, which meant that both I and Mrs7t could run. (we could both run even without the help but I didn't fancy having to clean all of the mud off the running buggy afterwards)

A dry week ended with heavy rain all day on parkruneve and the course held on to most of that water giving us a very wet course to play on on parkrunday.

I had decided beforehand that I wanted to run this as a time trial, so I lined up near the front of the pack and went off hard. The far end of the course was a bit like a  mud bath and the tight corner required walking pace in order to negotiate it successfully.

The trail section was pretty tricky too. I lost my footing a few times but nothing too serious. Further into the trail there were some pretty large puddles, tip toeing around them really zapped my energy so I changed my approach and went straight through.

The section leading up to the finish line was waterlogged and on the second lap I felt like I was barely moving as I struggled for traction on the loose ground.

I managed to finish in under 21 minutes, which given the conditions was a fair time. Even though the conditions were not good for running a fast time, Mrs7t managed to run her best parkrun of 2012.

The best decision of the day was the one where I packed a spare pair of socks, as my trail shoes (and everything inside) were completely soaked through. When your feet are wet and cold there is no greater feeling than warm, dry feet.

Gunpowder parkrun

Please note that this is quite an old post. I will be revisiting and writing a new post at some point in 2022, but probably not before the 5 Nov special event - sorry.

At 7.20am I entered Westminster tube station for another journey into North London. Half-an-hour later I emerged at Tottenham Hale and waited for the 08:13 Greater Anglia train towards Bishops Stortford. 9 minutes later I arrived at Enfield Lock and continued the rest of my journey on foot.

The entrance to Gunpowder park is about 1km from the station, once in the park it's about another kilometre to reach the main entrance, car park, visitor centre, toilets, and the parkrun registration area. Entering at the far end of the park gave me the opportunity to check out the course - which was good.

It was a chilly morning (approx 3 degrees) so I was quite wrapped up. I made the mistake of jogging between the station and the start without removing any outer layers so once I had arrived I had already started to sweat, which meant I started the run in slightly damp running gear - I should know better by now.

I went around to HQ and found a spot to leave my bag, there were plenty of people gathered and lots of runners had also found spots to park their bicycles and leave their belongings.

The course is run all on paths and, as you can see from the photo above, are kind of gravely with some of the stones being loose. This is not a flat course but by no means is it hilly. This fits into the slightly undulating category (I'd say it adds about 30 seconds or so to the overall time versus a flat course).

The park used to belong to the military and as the name hints at, was used to develop and test explosives. You can still see reminders of this as you make your way around the park. There are also some wildlife areas and bat viewing areas. The grass areas were still holding onto a lot of water but the paths only had the occasional puddle.

The run started, as always, at 9am and the 52 runners set off at varying paces into the distance. I felt pretty sluggish and couldn't really settle into a decent rhythm. I just put my head down and got on with the task at hand and in the end it worked out fine.

I carried on around the meandering paths - gradually ascending and descending as the elevation gently changes. The steepest of the inclines occurs along the back straight section, but even that in itself isn't too bad.

Two and a bit laps are required to complete the full 5k. And in true parkrun style, as you reach the half-way point there is lots of encouragement from the volunteers and supporters. My half-way time was slightly slower than in previous weeks but that was expected due to the undulations.

The course is not marshaled but the route is very easily followed thanks to some well placed direction signs. Before I knew it I was heading back past the visitor centre and onto the final few metres and, finally, the opportunity to stop running.

Scanning taken care of very efficiently, I packed up my things and walked back through the park and towards Enfield Lock station to catch the train back to somewhere familiar. Being born-and-bred in South London, I've never really had any reason to venture into North London in the past so I still feel quite out of place up there.

Another nice parkrun that is well worth a visit. The only odd thing that happened was both of my .gpx files from the day (warmup and parkrun) are corrupt. Could it have anything to do with the previous use of the land?

Hackney Marshes parkrun

Please note, there is now an updated Hackney Marshes parkrun write-up.

New write-up: Hackney Marshes parkrun (2023)

Sub-zero temperatures, frost and ice was probably not the ideal combination for my first cycle-commute (was it a commute?) to parkrun. I considered scrapping the cycle journey and changing the day's venue to one better reached by train, but in the end I stuck to the plan.

The cycle route I decided to take from Westminster went pretty much straight along the Thames until I reached the Tower of London, at that point I picked up one of these blue super cycle lanes. At the end of the cycle lane I was able to transfer to the Regents canal, which starts at Limehouse. I rode North along the canal, and straight past the start line of Mile End parkrun. I then cut through Victoria park (complete with frozen lake) before joining another canal and passing the olympic/paralympic stadium. A few minutes later I had arrived at Hackney Marshes.

The journey took a total of 55 minutes, my finger tips and toes were almost numb. It took a good 10 minutes of walking and jogging to get the blood circulating properly again.

Hackney Marshes parkrun starts directly next to the Hackney Marshes Centre, it has a car park, about a gazillion cycle racks and sells refreshments. The course is almost entirely on tarmac and is flat.

As the runners arrived it was very obvious that there is a real community here, all I could see was people chatting and smiling. I know this is the same for a lot of parkruns but for some reason it was even more apparent here.

At 8.55 there was a small briefing for any first-timers, then we moved straight onto the main briefing. At 9am sharp we were let loose. The grass was frosty with patches of ice so I started cautiously and after about 100 metres we joined the main path along the river lea.

I had visited the course the previous weekend to check the cycle route so I was happy that I knew roughly where to go... until I reached a certain section where the tarmac path follows one route and a dirt track goes straight ahead. They both take you to the same point but as I was unsure I stayed on the tarmac path (the longer of the two routes).

When I reached the 2.5km point there was a turn-around point, so I did just that. As I headed back along the path I noticed that everyone coming towards me was taking the dirt path, so I made a mental note to do that next time.

I followed the path back along the river and finally back onto the grass and over the finish line. At first I forgot to take my finishing token (I blame it on the extreme effort making my brain forget simple things) but I was soon handed it.

I had intended to hang around and have a tea with the rest of the parkrunners, but I kept thinking about the hour of cycling that I had in front of me and that I really wanted to get back home for breakfast, so I left straight away.

On the way back home along the canal, I had an unexpected treat - a steam train crossed a bridge right in front of me, so I stopped and watched it go by. I wanted to take a photo for this blog post but couldn't get my phone out fast enough. I did, however, take a quick snap of the Olympic/Paralympic stadium.