It’s been a while. In March 2020, we toured at St Mary’s parkrun. In my write-up from that run, I mentioned that “Given that it seems more and more likely that parkrun will be suspended soon, we were eager to get out and parkrun this weekend.” Well, it has to be said that I hadn’t anticipated quite such a long suspension.

Obviously parkrun returned quite a while ago now. Firstly, this post is very tardy: we’re out of practice at blogging. Secondly, we didn’t get straight back to touring: parkrun came back at the start of the summer holidays, which brings holiday traffic to the M5, and after facing it for work, I wasn’t really up to doing it again on a Saturday for ‘fun’.

So it wasn’t until the start of September that we scheduled our first tourist trip. Initially we planned to head to Stonehouse parkrun, but some uncertainty about whether they had toilets meant that we finally opted for Stratford Park parkrun, Stroud, a little further off the M5, but in the same general area.

Stratford Park parkrun, Stroud is (this is going to blow your mind) in Stratford Park in Stroud, Gloucestershire. The park has plenty of greenspace, and a manor house, and is situated behind a leisure centre. There is lots of parking in the leisure centre car park (which is free), and the centre staff are happy to let parkrunners in to use the toilets and changing rooms.

Due to some issues on the motorway, we arrived in a huge rush at about 8:50, but still managed to get the buggy set up, all of us use the toilets, and get to the start in time for the end of the run briefing. We did miss the first timers’ briefing though, so I knew basically nothing about the course…

I ran this one with Lani, while Lolly took the buggy. The course starts along a wide path, but quickly narrows as it winds its way around the manor house. Lani got off to a quick start, and was motivated by being ahead of Mummy, meaning that when we hit the first hill, pictured above, she kept running, gaining us a few positions. The course continues up the hill past the play park, and then does a little out and back above the park, before heading gently downhill for most of the rest of the lap.

The lap is nicely varied; the wide grassy expanse of the park area, followed by a more wild meadow feel, and then the course disappears down into the wood for a short stretch, before coming back out below the manor house, but even this stretch was strewn with large tree roots which make it very uneven underfoot. At the end of each of the three laps, a short sharp tarmac incline brought you back to the start/finish area.

On the final lap, rather than turning right at the top of this hill, you turn left and then loop around to the right on the other side of the hedge. (Looking at it as we approached, I was worried we were going to have to go all the way around the tennis courts, but we didn’t!) Some phenomenal running from Lani, along with a course which did not suit the buggy meant that we stayed ahead of Lolly for a great little run for Lani.

When we visited, there were 73 finishers, and it was a really nice friendly event. Numbers haven’t topped 100 since the return, and on some of the more inclement weeks have been under 50. I imagine in the wetter conditions at the moment, it’d be a really tough course, but in the late summer sun, it was gorgeous. The sports centre café wasn’t open when we visited, so we headed straight back after.

Next up in our tourist travels was Somerdale Pavilion…