Category Archives: parkrun

parkrun tourism: Pomphrey Hill

by Ben

This post originally appeared on Ben’s old blog, Running From the Physio.

At the weekend, my wife and I headed off again to try out another parkrun. This time, a Christmas party in Bristol with my wife’s family was the excuse. There are four parkruns in and around Bristol: Ashton Court, Little Stoke, Pomphrey Hill and Chipping Sodbury. There is also one in Bath. As we were staying in Keynsham the two most logical options were Pomphrey Hill and Bath, and despite the worrying aspect of the name, we went for Pomphrey Hill.

As luck(?) would have it, Ira Rainey (one of them there Twitter folk: @IraRainey) was run director for the day, so I had a ready source of information for the event, and it would be a good excuse to meet him face to face. (In a public environment, in case he turned out to be a mad axe-murderer.) He proved to both supply good information, recommending trail shoes rather than road shoes, and not be a mad axe-murderer (at least, not on a Saturday morning…)

A cold and frosty morning for a run. (Credit: Ira Rainey)

I wasn’t too keen on the idea of three laps, but on the other hand, I’d raced in the Street 5k series early in the week, and that consisted of five laps, so three didn’t seem quite so bad. The run briefing was fun and interactive, and definitely one that other parkruns could learn from. For example, asking if any runners have hit an “anniversary run” helps to avoid cliquishness that might otherwise set in. With all that done, we were asked to step back behind the line, which ruined my cunning plan to shave half a second off my finishing time!

Pomphrey Hill is quite a small parkrun, typically attracting less than 100 runners: with this in mind, and a look at previous results, I knew that I should be running in and around the top 10, an unusually lofty position, and one that normally means I’ve set off far too fast!

So, the course:
In many ways, of the local parkruns I’ve done in the past couple of months, this one was most similar to our own at Longrun Meadow. It was run entirely on paths around a playing field, though they varied between light gravel, tarmac and bark. The major difference was the hill. Longrun Meadow is pretty pancake like. Pomphrey Hill, as the name might suggest, is not. The cry of “Up Pomphrey!” during the run briefing gave me the idea that this possibly was not “just” a hill. Actually, as Ira pointed out at the end, it’s only actually just under 40 ft of climb. However, the steepness, combined with the fact that this was the spongy bark-covered part of the course made it more sapping than perhaps it should have been. Of course, what goes up must come down, and in its own way, the descent was as difficult as the ascent: the frosty morning meant that despite the salt that had been put down, footing was a little hairy on the tarmac path back down the hill.

The great advantage of multiple laps is the obvious fact that after the first time around, you know what’s coming and can adjust your pace in anticipation: be that slowing for a hill, or accelerating because there isn’t far left. The disadvantage is that when you have just got to the top of a hill, you are aware that you still have to run up it another twice!! Still, on balance I think I actually quite enjoyed the shorter laps, as it helped me to maintain a more consistent pace than I typically manage at Longrun Meadow.

Back to my run:
I spent much of the race in tenth place, and pushed up to eighth on the climb Up Pomphrey on the final lap. Despite actually being slower up and down the hill on my third lap, I held on to eighth place, and even put in a trademark sprint finish to cement it. Once I’d finished I looped back on the course a little bit to cheer on my wife, who was coming around to start her final lap, and had a chat to a couple of the other runners. Unsurprisingly for a parkrun, particularly a small one, everyone was very friendly and chatty: it’s great to be part of such a nice community, even when miles from home!

Final analysis: I finished in 21:05, my second fastest parkrun anywhere, which was something of a surprise given how much harder the course felt (and the fact that my watch said 21:22, but no more about that!) My wife completed her first parkrun since July, since when she has been beset with chest problems. All in all, a good fun morning, and a course we both want to go back to.

parkrun tourism: Yeovil Montacute

by Ben

This post originally appeared on Ben’s old blog, Running From the Physio.

We returned to visit Yeovil Montacute again in 2018 during the winter, when they were using their “B” course at Ham Hill, read about that here.

A couple of weeks ago, I headed out for a little more parkrun tourism. It came hot on the heels of a visit to Killerton, and was the last week in a five-week absence from my home parkrun (rest, illness, Killerton, rest, Yeovil). I was quite tempted to just head to my home run after so long away, but this bit of tourism had been planned for a while, so I stuck with the plan.

Location:
This is technically the next closest parkrun to me after Longrun Meadow, although the differing quality of the roads means that it takes more or less the same time to do the 22 mile drive to Yeovil Montacute as it does to drive 28 miles to Killerton. Like Killerton, the Yeovil Montacute run is located in the grounds of a National Trust property. Unlike Killerton, the route goes right past the house, with the east façade (pictured) providing a gorgeous backdrop to the run. Admittedly, despite the size and glamour of the building, my attention was elsewhere while running!

The stunning Montacute House (credit: Mike Searle, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Terrain:

Again, this varied completely from either of Longrun Meadow or Killerton. The route was entirely run on grass, and undulated throughout. The course was reasonably dry when I ran it, but I suspect that some of the ditches that I dropped down into would get quite tasty in the winter months. In fact, the ditch jumps, which Sarah (@mia79gbr) raved about so much in her blog post back in April, were the main reason I wanted to do this course so much. What I did forget reading in her post was that there was a “massive hill in the last kilometre”. This did catch me a little by surprise. It shouldn’t have done, but it did. Underfoot, the course is most similar to a cross-country course: my trail shoes performed admirably, but a set of XC spikes would probably be the most effective. Once it gets a bit wetter, this isn’t a course I’d recommend attempting in normal road shoes, I suspect you’d slip all over the place!
Course:
The route takes in one “little lap” and one “big lap”. At the end of the first lap, the little one, you are running directly towards the house, the finish and all the cheering supporters. This provides a similar boost to the traditional lap set-up at Longrun Meadow, although I didn’t see a similar boost in pace! The big lap then completes an entire circuit of the grounds.
Summarising, I really enjoyed the run. I ran a slower time than I’ve achieved at either Killerton or Longrun, although my pacing was pretty awful, so that will have played a part. It is less well-attended than either of those as well, which did make the latter part of the race a little uncompetitive: it was pretty clear that I would finish 17th, no higher and no lower, for the last mile of the run. That said, as with every parkrun I’ve attended, the support was great from all the volunteers and spectators, and I would love to go back when it’s a little bit wetter! Additionally, I’m really glad to have three such completely different courses as my three nearest parkrun events.

parkrun tourism: Killerton

by Ben

This post originally appeared on Ben’s old blog, Running From the Physio.

Firstly, a question: as a brand name, “parkrun” isn’t capitalised. Grammatically this is clearly incorrect, it is a proper noun, and therefore should take a capital letter. However, as a corporate styling, it doesn’t. I can cope with that. But, but… what about when it starts the sentence, then what am I meant to do?! Anyway, never mind, I went with the corporate styling, even though it offends my eyes.

Last weekend, I decided to cheat on Longrun Meadow parkrun, and pop down the road to my next closest. This isn’t the first dalliance, but previously it has only been on a weekend when I was out of Taunton anyway, and everyone knows the postcode rule, right? But this time was different, I was still at home, I could have easily walked down the river for my usual Saturday morning routine, but I wanted something new, different, exciting! I wanted… Killerton parkrun.

Actually, there’s a bit more to the story than that: Killerton were short of volunteers early in the week, and my wife currently isn’t running, so given that we’d wanted to try the course out for a while, it seemed an ideal opportunity: she signed up to barcode scan, and I went along to run. Killerton was very, very different to Longrun Meadow, and rather than write a normal “race report” style post, I’d like to compare and contrast:

Willow Cathedral in Longrun Meadow
(credit: shuunyanet, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Location:

Killerton House (credit: Roger Cornfoot)

This is the first, and most striking difference. Longrun Meadow is part of Taunton’s flood defences, and consists of paths around flood pools. A number of projects have resulted in the Oak Barn and the Willow Cathedral (pictured), but it is still essentially a flood plain! In contrast, Killerton parkrun takes place in the grounds of a National Trust property, and weaves its way through woodland down onto pasture land at the end. Not that I was doing a great deal of sightseeing during the run! Being a National Trust site did help us navigate to the run, as there were useful brown signs directing us from the motorway, although my car’s sat-nav still got some use! The other obvious difference in locations was in their distance from me: Longrun Meadow is a slow twenty minute walk along the river from home. Killerton was a forty minute drive. I know which I’d generally prefer on a Saturday morning, although, with a young daughter, I’m up early enough either way!

Terrain:
As a flood plain, Longrun Meadow is almost entirely flat, and predominantly on lightly-gravelled paths. There might be some sort of technical name for the type of path, but I’m not really a path expert, so if there is, I don’t know it. A short section is tarmacked cycle path, while another, dubbed “the muddy bit” is grass in the summer, and a mud-bath in the winter. Killerton on the other hand is an undulating course, though one that drops about 125 feet from start to finish, taking in fields, woodland paths and farm-tracks. The footing is uneven in places, uneven in others, and particularly hazardous with the current generous layers of autumn leaves. Thankfully, some of the gates are left open and guarded by marshals to prevent hazardous prancing over cattle-grids or vaulting over fences. (Though I hear one such manoeuvre might have been involved when the course record was set!)

Course:
Apart from the terrain, the most obvious difference between the runs is perhaps that Longrun Meadow parkrun is run over two laps, while Killerton takes in just one: and in fact as the start and finish are a few hundred metres apart, it could be argued it isn’t even a lap! I’ve always favoured “one lap” events, citing the fact that multiple laps of the same course would be boring, and having to go around everything again would be mentally tougher. To an extent, I stand by that, but on the other hand, taking in two laps of Longrun Meadow means that we run past the finish line, where most of the volunteers, and any supporting family members are, halfway around. Whether you’re struggling or not, this gives a nice little boost in the middle of the run. Not just a mental boost either: the speed increase in the graph below is replicated in almost every run I do at Longrun Meadow, and it’s completely unintentional.

Not sure your cheering and clapping helps? My pace graph says it does!

At Killerton however, only the marshals provided support around the course, and while that support was welcome and well-received, it can’t quite compare!

Volunteers and runners:
What wasn’t different? The cheery, friendly nature of every parkrunner and volunteer. Despite being short earlier in the week, I think Killerton ended up slightly over-subscribed with volunteers as people sacrificed a run to help out. I got chatting before the race to a chap who was down visiting family, running his 49th parkrun, but his first at Killerton. We compared notes on our “home” parkruns and moaned about the hill we had to climb to the start. During the run, I did have a small problem with an unaccompanied junior runner, but these things happen, and credit to the Killerton core team, after I mentioned it, they posted a notice about junior runners on their Facebook page later that day. I hung around at the finish line, cheering runners home after I’d finished, and as always it was great to see the smiles as people pushed for the final sprint.

So the conclusion? Different, different, but same! This week, I’ve got to work on Saturday, but next week I’m cheating on Longrun Meadow again, and am heading out to Yeovil Montacute. I’m sorry Longrun Meadow, but I’ve had a taste of something different, and now I’m hooked!

Have you cheated on your “home” parkrun?
 
What differences and similarities did you find?
 
Do you want to run more different parkruns, or do you prefer to run the same one?

Of parkrun and Sweatshop

by Ben

This post originally appeared on Ben’s old blog, Running From the Physio.

As I’ve certainly mentioned before, I’m a big convert to the parkrun phenomenon. Since running my first one on 9 November, I have participated in every event at Longrun Meadow. In late December, I volunteered for the first time, being one of the two timers. I think I was more nervous before that event than I was before any of the ones I was running.

Last Saturday, after completing the first parkrun of 2014 (at Longrun Meadow anyway: some runs have a New Year’s Day run,) I was planning to head down to Exeter to get some new running shoes: mine are somewhere between 18 months and two years old, and have never been ideal. (Nike Lunarswift 3 for the record.) The weather was horrible though, and we decided not to: which turned out to be a lucky decision, as only an hour or so later, I got an email from our parkrun director saying that I had been voted as the winner of the monthly prize: a free pair of running shoes from Sweatshop. Ideal!

So plans were remade: a quick look online confirmed that there were Sweatshop branches in both Exeter and Bristol, but Exeter only stocked Nike kit, so Bristol seemed the more sensible option. That Saturday was out of the question by then, so we decided to go up this Saturday (yesterday). Before the parkrun, I was presented with the voucher by the day’s race director Mick Drohan. I marked the occasion by running a PB, a despite a few initial problems which meant my time didn’t show up on the system, this was speedily resolved to show a time of 22:27, almost a thirty second improvement on my previous best.

Parkrun completed, there was the small matter of getting our three-month-old daughter ready to go: so roughly two hours after getting home, we left for Bristol. The shop was in a David Lloyd Lesiure centre, which made parking very easy. I headed straight in while my wife fed the baby. The store was compact but reasonably well stocked, especially for shoes. I ambled around for a while, looking at their range of shoes without really taking much of it in: I had no idea at all what I was after. Presently, one of the members of staff asked if I needed any help, so I told them I had a parkrun voucher: she beamed excitedly at me and told me she’d be right back.

Straight away, I was slightly more relaxed: I’d been a bit worried that because I’d be getting free shoes, the level of care might be in some way reduced, but this was certainly not the case. First, she got me to stand on some glass, lit from below, which identified that I had a higher than average arch (who knew), and then some further exercises, one of which had me crouch down, and the other lift my toes. These identified that I had a reasonably stable stance, without too much over-pronation. She then selected a pair of neutral running shoes (New Balance 1080s), and videoed me running on the treadmill. The video suggested a little more over-pronation than we had first thought, mostly on my right foot, but it was still nothing major, so we decided to stick to neutral shoes, with loop lacing.

So then the exciting bit: trying on shoes! I think overall I tried on five different pairs of shoes: the 1080s, Mizuno Wave Rider 17s, Brooks Ghost 6s, Brooks Glycerin 11s and a pair of Adidas shoes I don’t remember the name of. The Adidas shoes were immediately discarded as being too narrow; as I have quite wide feet, I’ve never fit into Adidas, who tend to manufacture quite narrow shoes. The Mizuno was a comfortable shoe on the sole my feet, but when I ran with it on the treadmill, it was aggravating around the ankle, so that ruled that one out too. The New Balance 1080s were a nice shoe, but by far the most comfortable were the pair of Brooks shoes: both felt snug and friendly around my foot, and when I was on the treadmill, I was just running and enjoying it, rather than nitpicking. The choice between the two was simplified by the fact that only one of them was in stock in my size; although the 9.5 felt okay, the size 9 was much nicer. So, shoe decided: the Brooks Glycerin 11.

Up until this point my decisions had all been about which shoe was best, independent of the cost, but my next decision was not so easy. During the shoe trials, I had also been sampling some FootBalance custom insoles. These were heated in an oven, and moulded to to my feet. They also aren’t cheap: £45 for the pair. I’ve worn insoles in my running shoes for at least four years, as an attempt to minimise shin splint problems that I suffered badly from, but previously I have always worn a generic SofSole Airr. Comparing the bog standard insole from the shoe with the custom insole was tough, as they offered completely different options: the shoe’s insole was more cushioned, by the custom insole gave me more support and kept my foot in place more within the shoe. In the end, I opted to spend the money: I’m not really sure it was worth an extra £45, but as I got the shoes for free, it seemed the best time to have a go and see if they suit me.

The whole process in Sweatshop probably took just over two hours: I went at lunchtime which meant that there was only the one staff member on duty, and she had to rotate around to help everyone in store. While this certainly made the process take longer than it should have, I still felt like I was getting very good service: she seemed to really care about me getting the right shoe and right fit. I was on and off their treadmill countless times, and even did a couple of laps of their car park while I was making sure that what I thought I liked was actually right for me. I have nothing but praise for Sweatshop from this visit, and it will definitely be in mind when I need my next pair!

Now I just have to be patient before I can run in them! Today’s eight miles doesn’t seem an appropriate time to wear them in… ah well. Tuesday?