Swindon parkrun was the first in the south west, starting on 6 March 2010. Since then it has taken place almost 500 times. At the start of November last year, it was held under the new name of “Lydiard parkrun” for the first time. It takes places in Lydiard Park, a 260-acre country park on the western edge of Swindon.

It wasn’t our first choice venue for running today. In fact, it wasn’t even our second choice:

So, yes… Stonehouse was waterlogged and cancelled. Wotton was also waterlogged, but went ahead anyway – but a look through the photos of the course made it pretty obvious that it wasn’t going to be appropriate to take a buggy. I might have coped okay, but it would have been unfair on the event team who had put a lot of effort into improving the course, for me to go rip it up with a buggy.

Joanne’s message to let me know how Wotton was looking was sent at 21:51, just as we were heading up to bed. Chances are that if she hadn’t messaged, we would either have never noticed, or only found out in the morning, when it would have been too late to come up with another plan. So at around 10 pm, we were frantically re-planning. Joanne’s mention of Lydiard was tempting, as it was one we had never been to, despite its age. The only downside was that it would involve getting up even earlier than we had been planning for Wotton… and getting the kids up.

Amazingly, the kids were already awake when we got up at 6:20. Even more amazingly, I jumped out of bed with the alarm! Some frantic car-packing and children-dressing later, we were on our way, just after 7 am. An hour-and-a-half later, and we were there!

Pre-run

Lydiard Park is well signed from the M4, and has decent parking, though it does fill up in the winter, as they can’t use the overflow car park which gets muddy. We got there nice and early, so we could pay for the parking (using the mobile app – who carries coins these days?) and then use the toilets (right next to the car park, nice and clean.)

The start and first-timers briefing locations were well signed, and as you might expect for a well-established parkrun, went pretty smoothly. The only slight complaint I would make is that by the time the first-timers briefing had finished, all the regulars were lined up to go, which meant that I was stuck to the side of the runners with the buggy, worrying about having to potential ‘barge’ my way in to get started…

The run brief was very good – a quality sound system is always a huge help. As we were mostly lined up to start, the brief blended straight into a “3-2-1-Start!” which even Lolly and Lani at the back could hear very clearly.

The run

The start was very congested: thankfully a lovely gentleman let me straight into the pack, but I was already well behind the 27-minute pacer, and going… slowly. It had taken me a good ten to twenty seconds to even get over the start line: Lolly and Lani took pretty much exactly a minute. The paths were relatively wide, and good quality, but a bit more puddly than I had anticipated. Which made my choice of road shoes for this run… ill-advised.

Although the paths were wide, the number of runners on them meant that they were still too congested for me to make decent progress for the first kilometre or so. I got caught up at the back of the 27-minute-pacer pack, and it was only when Joanne shouted for runners to be aware of the buggy and to mind their ankles that I was able to work my way through – thanks again Joanne! (I never really like to shout “excuse me” at people, it feels like I’m suggesting I’m more important than they are or something…)

Once I was past the 27-minute pacer, I moved into much clearer space, and was able to pay more attention to the actual course. It starts with a short section out to join a two-lap loop, which is roughly triangular in shape, albeit with one corner cut off. The course is broadly flat, though it gently descends for most of the lap before a short, shallow climb back to the start/finish point. Essentially it is flat enough to be a slog, with the shallow hill just making it more of a slog. But maybe that was just because I was pushing a buggy around it.

After an early attempt to avoid the puddles to save my road shoes, I gave it up as impossible, and just went straight through everything, caking my lovely road shoes, my legs and my shorts in a layer of mud. The marshals were excellent all the way round, and it was very cute to hear a couple of quiet “Thank you marshal”s from KK in the buggy! The finish funnel was a bit narrow for a buggy, but this is because they were implementing a double-funnel for the busy parts of the run (which still wasn’t enough: at one point finishers were queuing at least twenty metres before the finish line. New Year, New You, obviously…)

Post-run

I got scanned, recovered my zoodie from the tarpaulin, and then headed back to the course to wait for Lolly and Lani. It’s possible that there was some chat with other runners and one of the marshals about how some people looked like they had run a completely different course – dry feet, no mud… Damn puddle dodgers! Once we had all finished, we headed to the cafe for an obligatory bacon bap (toasted teacake for Lolly) and cup of tea (just milk for the children), and then a short play in the play park. Short mostly because it was cold, and both children were shivering!

Overall, this was a really nice surprise of a parkrun. Mostly because we hadn’t been expecting to do it, and really knew very little about it. I liked the park itself, it was a pleasant and pretty environment to run in. If the weather had been a bit warmer, we would likely have hung around for a bit longer after. The event was well organised and very slick (apart from the overcrowding in the finish funnel, but that’s excusable with such huge numbers.) The cafe after was nice with a varied menu, and not too busy by the time we went in.

It was really nice to see Joanne before the run, and I think given all she did, I should probably dedicate this parkrunday to her!!