Walthamstow parkrun Inaugural Event

Please note: There is a newer (better) write-up for this venue: Walthamstow parkrun 2023 write-up

If you are on this page to read the original 2013 blog, please continue...

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The recent snow gave me a brilliant idea for the name for this blog post but then the temperature went up a few degrees, melted most of the snow and ruined my idea to call this blog entry 'Walthamsnow parkrun'.

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The day previously known as Friday brought with it a whole raft of parkrun cancellations - mostly due to icy paths. Luckily Walthamstow parkrun is run all on grass (with the exception of a few metres where you cut across the edge of the car park) and even though there was some ice on the grass, it was very broken up and there was no risk of slipping on it.

The run is three laps of the private sports fields that are adjacent to the 'Peter May Sports Centre' called 'Highams Park', not to be confused with the proper park just down the road called 'The Highams Park'. One advantage of this is that as it is not a 'public' park they do not allow dogs, which for someone like me (ie not comfortable running around them) is a huge plus point.

Three laps around some sports fields. On the surface it doesn't sound that exciting but once you get going it's actually pretty good. The first half of the lap rises ever so gently, so the second half must give it back (but I didn't notice it doing so). About three quarters of the way around each lap the is a berm (also the name of a band that I was once in) that you must run over, it is about 2-3 metres in height and really adds an interesting feature to the course.

I decided to travel to the venue using public transport, of which there are a few options. If you prefer to stick to the tube network you can alight at Walthamstow Central - This leaves you with a three kilometre walk or warm-up jog. The option I took was to pick up the Great South Western train from Liverpool Street station and go to the closest train station to the venue - Highams Park. From here it is just over one kilometre on foot.

As for my run - I ran pretty hard but felt sluggish. The snow had melted and left the ground very wet, it only took a few minutes for my feet to end up completely soaked through. Fortunately I was prepared for this and had brought additional trainers and socks so that I could travel home with dry feet (unlike last week).

This post gets a mention in the week's parkrun show - Skapoullis

Old Winter WonDeerland parkrun

Please note there is a new write-up for this venue: Old Deer Park parkrun write-up (2023)

If you are here for the original 2013 blog, please continue...

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As the snow fell on parkruneve I sat there cross checking the latest updates from each of the 12 possible parkrun venues on my list for the following day. My preference was for a venue that is run entirely on grass or trail - my reasoning was that this type of venue would be less likely to cancel than a tarmac course.

As the day went on a few cancellations popped up on my twitter feed, they were tarmac courses and were just too slippery. In contrast there were a few venues that were confidently declaring that they would be able to go ahead.

In the end the top two on my list were Wimbledon and Old Deer Park. The final decision would come down to the public transport and backup parkrun options. South West trains could get me fairly close to both venues, but if I could make it right into Richmond I would have a few other options should Old Deer Park need to cancel at the last minute. If that situation was to occur at Wimbledon the alternatives would be harder to reach.

To be on the safe side I added a couple of Richmond minicab phone numbers to my address book to give me a head start should I have to make a desperate attempt at reaching another venue at the last minute.

I took the 7.15am train from Waterloo (which acted as part recce for a journey to Reading and Woodley parkruns sometime in the future), arrived at Richmond station at 7.35am and walked the short walk across to Old Deer Park. There was no-one else around so I took some photos and then headed off to find the toilets in the adjacent swimming pool building.

At around 8am I was back in the Old Deer Park where I bumped into the organisers and walked with them as they marked out the course - not an easy job when the usual landmarks are covered in snow!

At 9am the runners (32 of us) were gathered and lead to the start line, shortly after we were running through the crunchy fresh covering of snow.

The course is three-and-a-bit laps of the park, which is mostly open playing fields, and is basically flat. With the course covered in snow I was very happy to put in a medium-ish effort in and just enjoy the run without the usual pain that a 5k time trial can inflict.

I felt very welcome at the run and as I was passing the start/finish area I heard my name being cheered, which is always a nice experience and not often one you get when running at a venue for the very first time.

So 23-and-half minutes later I came through the finish funnel and shortly after wrapped myself up in my coat which I had left in the bag drop area. I then grabbed my bottle of coconut water to help rehydrate myself - It really is amazing stuff.

I was invited to join them for post-run tea, and I was initially going to take them up on the offer, but as I stood there post-run watching Dads playing in the snow with their children I made the decision to go straight back to Westminster to do the same with the toddler.

There is a new write-up for this venue: Old Deer Park parkrun write-up (2023)

Harrow Lodge parkrun

PLEASE NOTE: I have an updated venue blog from 2021: Harrow Lodge parkrun

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There is something I need to point out regarding Harrow Lodge parkrun. It is not in Harrow. It is in Hornchurch, East London. If you are looking to run a parkrun in Harrow there is now one and you can read about it in my Harrow parkrun blog post.

Now that I have that out of the way, I will continue...

The inaugural event of this parkrun had been in my calendar ever since I spotted its start date late in 2012. The journey looked relatively simple, all I would need to do is jump on the District line heading East and get off about 45 minutes later at Elm Park station.

As the inaugural run date neared, I took a look at transport for london's website to check the status of engineering works for that weekend. What would you know.. they had decided to close the District line one station before Elm Park. However, to make sure people could still get around they had scheduled a replacement bus, which on the surface seemed pretty good.

It wasn't until a couple of days beforehand that I read the small print which said that they were closing a larger section of the line overnight, and that was due to end by 7am. Engineering works are notorious for over-running and I didn't want to risk being stranded on parkrunday. So I reluctantly made the decision to drive instead.

Also having travel worries was one of the presenters of the parkrun show, and uber-tourist, Danny Norman. So he became my travel companion for the day. We arrived at the venue pretty early despite me missing our turn off of the A13, luckily Danny fired up his satnav app on his phone to get us back on track.

The weather was colder than it had been recently, but at 3 degrees it wasn't exactly cold for the time of year. The forecast did include warnings for light snow and just as we were getting ready a few snowflakes fell - it only lasted for a few seconds - I counted four snowflakes.

The start/finish area is situated right next to the car park, which is good. The toilets are on the opposite side of the park in the sports centre (or 'sportcentre' - as it says above the door), which isn't that far but it is worth arriving early if you think you'll need to make a visit before running.

The river Ravensbourne runs along the edge of the park and links into the boating lake, which is an extension and widening of the the river and was originally built as a flood balancing lake.

The course is one lap, with approx 4.5km of grass/mud, and the remainder being made up of short stretches on tarmac paths. For this particular day, trail shoes were the sensible option as there was quite a bit of mud plus a few waterlogged sections.

The route first takes you towards the South West corner of the park, you soon reach some tennis courts where you turn right and soon you pass through some trees. You then work your way through to the North East end of the park, past the sports centre, circle a cricket field and head back along the opposite edge of the park passing through mini trail-like section next to the river and then back onto a grass section. The last kilometre of the run is a lap of the lake, which brings you back to where you started.

The profile of this one is strange. It's definitely not hilly. It's probably best described as mildly undulating, but these undulations coupled with the conditions made this a really hard run. The gentle inclines seem to have a way of quickly tiring the legs. To make things worse, I have no memory of any downhill sections to make up for the inclines.

All things considered, this is another great venue for a parkrun - After the excitement of the inaugural run they can now get on with the business of building a nice new community event.

Unfortunately the cafe wasn't open on the day I visited so, after waiting for everyone to finish and chatting to others to confirm that the course was as challenging for them as it was for me, it was straight back on the road (now with a second passenger - uber-tourist, John Matthews) towards Central London where Danny interviewed me for episode 71 of the parkrun show.

Later on I realised that as this was my 20th different venue I now appear on the parkrun most events list (well, for now at least - the criteria might change soon).

Photos: I borrowed the photo of the runners at the start line from the Harrow Lodge parkrun facebook page. I took the rest myself.

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There is also a video from the event which I am in.

parkrunning with dinosaurs (Crystal Palace parkrun)

This weekend I was planning to visit a North London parkrun, but sometimes things happen which lead me towards other venues. The wife decided that it would be a good idea to meet up with the Riddlesdown crew again, but I was keen to still visit a new venue beforehand. So on the first Saturday of 2013 I found myself standing at the start line of Crystal Palace parkrun.

The journey to Crystal Palace went well and we arrived at the park (using the entrance just off Thicket Road) with plenty of time to spare. The start area is very well positioned, it is right next to the toilets, car park and cafe. There are other car parks and plenty of roadside parking nearby.

The course covers two-and-a-bit laps of the North-East side of the park. It is not flat. You spend the first half of each lap running uphill and the second half running back down - which actually works really well, as the downhill sections are long enough to allow for a pretty good recovery from the uphill.

The course is run all on paths - some are tarmac and some are slightly loose gravel. The only section that isn't on a path is the part where you peel off into the finish funnel at the very end. The paths gently twist and turn, giving runners a nice meandering route to follow.

I ran the course a lot faster than I was expecting to and was just pipped to the post by a fellow buggy runner (it had crossed my mind to get the running buggy out of the car but in the end decided against it).

It is worth noting that the park is a magnet for dog walkers so expect to meet plenty on the way around. I do get a tad nervous around dogs but none seemed to be overly bothered by the runners passing by.

On the day that I ran the event there was a misty rain in the air, and the top half of Crystal Palace tower was hidden in the low clouds. Other features in the park include a maze and some life-size dinosaur models which date back to 1854. I remember seeing these as a child and after the run was keen to take the toddler to go and see them, which we did. Check out the dinosaur photo-bombing us in the photo below.

After our dinosaur spotting we carried on to the Horseshoe, in Warlingham, and spent a good few hours socialising with the Riddlesdown gang!

This day had the highest number of runners so far in parkrun history (over three thousand more than the previous record) and the results took a while to come through as the parkrun computers churned through all of the data. Later in the evening my results text message came through and was exactly the same as the time I had recorded on my stopwatch (20.25).

parkrunning on New Year's Day 2013

New Year's Day presented me with a logistical problem. I wanted to run at Riddlesdown and Roundshaw parkruns. However, the roads where I am currently living (in central London) are within the area that was closed to traffic on New Year's Eve and there was no guarantee that they'd be open in time for me to leave on New Year's Day. So on Sunday evening I put phase one of my travel plan into action and parked my car in Bermondsey, which is just 7 minutes away by tube.

Phase two of the plan came into play on New Year's Day, when I woke up after having less than three hours sleep, and took the tube to Bermondsey to pick up the car. Fortunately everything went to plan and by 7.15am I was listening to the wife's Lana Del Rey CD and driving through the deserted early morning roads, with the exception of Brixton High Street where the party was still on-going.

My plan was to run the official Riddlesdown parkrun at 9am, drive across to Roundshaw Downs for their 10am event and then drive back to Riddlesdown for a freedom run at 11am.

9am - Riddlesdown

I arrived at Riddlesdown at 8am, got changed into my trail shoes which were still damp from running at Hilly Fields parkrun on Christmas day, and spent the next 40 minutes loitering around the registration area. At 8.55am I had a short 1km warm up run with Pete and discovered just how muddy and waterlogged the course is at the moment. Even in trail shoes I found it difficult to find any traction whatsoever.

Onto the run itself and the other parts of the course weren't any easier to negotiate. The end of the trail section was particularly wet and at one point my foot went so deep down into a puddle I was convinced that I was going to have to swim out.

It was all good fun and I finally made my way around the course in a time that, on the surface, looks quite sedate but in reality was bloody hard work! My right calf felt a little sore at the end.

I had my barcode scanned and swiftly continued back to the car. Once there I changed into my second pair of socks and dry shoes and made my way down to Roundshaw.

10am - Roundshaw Downs

I arrived at Roundshaw at 9.50am, changed back into my soaking wet trail shoes and walked over to the start line where I found a few familiar faces waiting. Once under way, I spent to first 2km of the run chatting to fellow Riddlesdown runner, Graeme (congratulations on joining the 50 club!).

The course at Roundshaw is all on grass/mud and is a two lapper. The first 2k of each lap feels like a gradual climb and then you have a fast downhill section right at the end. The terrain is pretty similar to Riddlesdown but nowhere near as waterlogged/muddy.

At the start of the first downhill section, I upped the effort and did my best to maintain it until the end. Once finished, there was a little time for some chatting but I was soon back at the car and changed back into my dry shoes and third pair of socks of the day and then got back on the road to Riddlesdown. My right calf was still sore and I was starting to think that I should be satisfied with the 11k that I had already run.

11am - Riddlesdown Freedom Run

When I arrived back at Riddlesdown, I had a chance to evaluate the soreness in the calf. I decided that I didn't want to risk running another 5k. So I put a few extra layers on and then changed into my trail shoes to avoid making my clean shoes muddy, and went over to attempt to help in some way.

There wasn't really anything left for me to do so I just tried to give the freedom runners some encouragement and then carried a few bags and a cycling helmet back to the registration area for some of the other runners.

Back at the car for my final sock change of the morning. I was now in my fourth pair and it wasn't even noon. However, even though my feet were freezing, they were at least on the dryer side than they would have been if I hadn't brought the extras.

Riddlesdown parkrun New Year's Day Lunch

Once everything had been packed away, I went off to pick up mrs7t and the toddler and then went onto the Horseshoe pub to have our annual New Year's Day Riddlesdown parkrun lunch, which rounded off a very brilliant start to the new year!

Thanks to the official photographer, Sophie, for the main photos from Riddlesdown, and to Nicki for the 'how many hats?' photo. Sadly there were no official photos from Roundshaw and I completely forgot to take any myself.