When the New Year’s Day double of Penrose and Heartlands appeared, it became almost inevitable that we would spend New Year’s at my parents’ in Cornwall. When we realised that we could also do Trelissick parkrun if I took the Monday (New Year’s Eve) off work, it became a nailed-on certainty. We had done Penrose before, but that was on the old cliff-climbing course, while Trelissick and Heartlands would be completely new to us. But more about the NYD double in another post.

Our logistics were not without their issues. As I was working on Thursday and Friday, and parkrun is on parkrunday (sorry, Saturday), this meant we’d need an evening drive down. Unfortunately, due to various issues (us not getting our stuff together) we left home at 19:40, having not eaten any dinner. We arrived at my parent’s house at 22:10, still having not eaten any dinner. Nor even snacked. A bowl of pasta with chicken nuggets and cheese at 22:40 eventually counted as dinner. This was not an optimal fuelling strategy, to quote a couple of the guys that I race against in the Somerset Series.

For a change, we were able to leave the children behind and head out alone. In general, we like to bring the children along, even if we have babysitters, so that they can be involved in the parkrun atmosphere, but after the night’s antics, we let them rest at home. (Wow – how many commas did I manage in that sentence?!) It was, for us, a short drive to a tourist parkrun: about 25 minutes.

The parkrun is hosted by a National Trust property, Trelissick Gardens, though the run itself doesn’t enter the gardens. As a result, there are copious amounts of parking, free for NT members or £3 for non-members. Runners gather by the cafe and toilets for the run briefing, before a walk through the gardens to the start. While we were waiting, we noticed a couple with cow cowls and an apricot declaring ‘Yeovil Montacute’, and so got chatting to the lovely Dave and Deb Stanfield. During the run briefing, Ola then got chatting to another tourist, this time from Pomphrey Hill parkrun – Helen Spilsbury. It was great to meet all three, and it was far from the only time over the parkrun holiday!

Anyway; paragraph 5, the run.

I hadn’t really researched the course. I had heard that there was a hilly field, and so in my head, the whole thing was on undulating grassy fields. It turned out the undulating was spot on, but not so much the grassy fields – for the most part, anyway. We started next to the River Fal by the King Harry Ferry – and a huge ship moored up out of the way. It was a downhill start on a woodland/coastal style path – compacted mud with a fair smattering of rocks and tree roots. It turned out that this was actually the terrain for the majority of the route.

The fast downhill start set the trend for the first kilometre and a quarter: though it gently undulated, we gradually dropped down to basically sea-level. I hadn’t really noticed from the running itself (though I should have realised that it felt too easy), but I did twig that the river had got a lot closer! Unsurprisingly, the first kilometre was my fastest. We crossed a bridge and had a short (like 20m? horizontal) climb followed by more path.

Just short of the two-kilometre mark, we reached the field that I’d heard about. And yeah – it had a climb. First, we more or less doubled back on ourselves, running the other side of the hedge from where we’d just come, and then took a sharp right up the hill. It wasn’t awful. Roughly 30 metres vertical gain at about 20% gradient at the worst. That said, it was relatively dry – I imagine that it’s pretty awful in the wet, slippy mud. The beauty of the loop around the field though was that what had gone up had to come back down. The descent was less steep, making it more runnable for most (personally, I’d clearly prefer it the other way around, but I firmly believe that parkrun courses should be as accessible as possible). It was still a fun-enough descent, and saw me hit my quickest pace of the run; a not-too-silly 3:14/km.

Back onto the path, and after the short run back to the bridge, there was no avoiding that it was going to be something of an uphill slog to the finish. I tagged along with a young lad (JM11-14) through this section, but eventually I had the legs on him and eased ahead. Between him, and another couple of runners, I managed to keep myself honest towards the end, when I really just wanted to take it easy and plod back. The hill kicks on steeper at the end, and a “120m to go” sign was a mixed blessing! The finish is further up the hill beyond the start line, making it technically an uphill course. That final stretch from the sign was one of the best finishes that I’ve experienced at parkrun. The nature of the course means that the spectators line the river-side of the path, creating a little cheering funnel up to the finish. Sadly, for those finished later than about 30 minutes, most of the spectators had left with their families, resulting in a far quieter finish for those runners.

I headed back down the hill after finishing to cheer Lolly in – I think she appreciated the shout of “Push, push up the hill.” [Editor’s note: she didn’t.] We both hung around for a while to cheer people in, before grabbing our hoodies, socialising a bit more, and heading back to the toilets and car, to rescue my parents from our children. Or should that be our children from my parents?! Just our short walk through the Gardens had shown how pretty they were, and we returned with the whole family in tow on New Year’s Eve. With the added advantage of being not in smelly running gear! It was really nice, and I’d recommend allowing time for a visit to the Gardens if you’re in the area.

Trelissick was a stunning parkrun – possibly in my top-three. I’d love to come back and run it when I’m at my peak, but that mostly depends on no more parkruns starting up in west Cornwall before we next visit my parents! The attendance at Trelissick didn’t quite set a new record, but was only 13 short – it seems that we weren’t the only ones who realised that a trip to Cornwall over New Year’s was a good way to tick some of the further parkruns off the list! (To my parents, if you’re reading: I do love you really!)

Next, three days later, the New Year’s Day double…