Given that it seems more and more likely that parkrun will be suspended soon, we were eager to get out and parkrun this weekend. We umm-ed and ahh-ed quite a bit about where to go: ideally we wanted to tick off a new location, but I’d had a loooong week at work, and so didn’t want to travel too far. Also, all the weather lately meant that there were a few courses that would still be more or less a no-go with the buggy.
Ultimately, we went to bed still unsure. We had two options: St Mary’s parkrun, which would be a new location for all of us, or Ashton Court parkrun, which Lolly and I had ran back on New Years’ Day 2016. In the morning, we still didn’t really make a decision. Basically, we got in the car, I popped in the postcode for St Mary’s parkrun in Bridport, and that was that.
After an easy drive, just under an hour, we arrived at Bridport Football Club car park, which happily allowed parking via mobile app (JustPark). Less happily, Lolly needed the toilet, and it turned out that was in another car park, so having arrived in plenty of time, we drove around to another car park. The course description page lists that all three car parks are five minutes walk from the parkrun. This… isn’t quite true. The football club car park is only a couple of minutes walk from the start/finish. West Street car park, which we ended up in, is, well, more than five minutes away.
Anyway, all’s well that ends well: Lolly had an empty bladder, and we still made it in plenty of time. Well, around 8:55, anyway. I assume that we missed the first timer’s briefing, and I couldn’t really hear the run briefing thanks to a pair of runners next to me chatting about the Grizzly (which was rubbing salt into the wound somewhat, given that I had to miss it due to injury!)
The course is three laps, primarily on tarmac path, but with a short section of grass on the playing field each lap. Even with the recent wet weather, this wasn’t too muddy, though I certainly slowed significantly going through it on the third lap!
We had a relatively small field of 100 exactly, and as the start was two sides of the playing field, on the grass, it was wide and open. This prevented me from getting trapped at the back, as I often do when running with the buggy, and so I was almost immediately at ‘race pace’. Of course, this came with its own downside: I was in near uncharted territory with the buggy: normally I’m used to building my pace up, and continually passing people. Instead, within the first half mile, I was more or less in the right place.
After the grassy two sides of the playing field, we went around the other two sides on tarmac path, and then turned the other direction, away from the playing field, along the main path. We followed this out of the playing fields section of the course and into another part. This section was a little bit unusual for a parkrun, as it included a path that ran right in front of a block of houses: they literally have parkrun on their doorstep. It was also really good fun: the paths twisted and turned back upon one another, climbing and dropping as they did so. People talk about ‘Mario Kart’ courses, and while this was only a small section of the course, it certainly had that sort of feel.
After winding through this section, with a couple of very tight corners that necessitated back-wheel turns, we returned to the main path, and wound back towards the playing fields again. Continuing along the main path, with the playing fields on the right and the river on the left, we ran out of the park area, about 150 metres and then doubled-back 180 degrees around a cone. Another back-wheel turn! Once back by the playing fields, we turned left to start the course again. And again. After going around the cone for the third time and heading back to the playing fields, we continued straight on into the finish.
Other than the start, the course is pretty narrow, and I’m glad that I was running as part of a smaller field: put 2-300 around this course, and it would struggle. With the buggy I did have to tuck behind runners that I wanted to overtake or lap a couple of times due to runners coming the other way, but never for too long. Conversely, the tight confines made it a very communal run: I must have seen Lolly and Lani four or five times during the run as we looped past each other in various places on the course.
For me personally, it was a tough run. I haven’t run barely at all for the past four weeks due to a bit of tendonitis in my lower calf, and pushing myself for a 5k with the buggy was hard work. But really good fun. I don’t know when we’ll be able to tour, or indeed parkrun at all, again, so it was good to get a positive experience in this week.
After the run, we ambled back to drop off the buggy in the car, and then explored Bridport in search of breakfast. We eventually found Soulshine Cafe – it was a bit more expensive than we would normally go for, but boy was it good. If, maybe, a little… hippy-like. My full English breakfast came scattered with seeds, and the baked beans were a homemade mix. I’m normally a ‘simple, meat-first’ approach, but genuinely, it was really nice.