Tag Archives: parkrun

Being part of the parkrun family

by Ben

Just about 19 months ago, two things happened. First, our daughter was born. Second, I went to parkrun for the very first time. While I can hardly equate one to the other, it is fair to say that both have changed my life in a big way.

I suspect that my dear daughter was probably asleep at this point…

This weekend, after a frustrating four months of injury, I finally ran my 50th parkrun, joining a burgeoning club of people with the dedication to get up and run on a Saturday morning. (Or, as in my own case, with a small child that won’t let them stay in bed anyway.) Along the way, I’ve made a great many friends, and set and then broken lots of PBs. I’ve marshalled, tail ran, timed and scanned barcodes. I’ve run with my daughter in a buggy, I’ve run as a reindeer, and I’ve run in a bright pink dress.

Running at parkrun has brought a focus, and a “reset” button into my running. I have a benchmark that I can always come back to and see how I’m doing. If I’ve had a bad week, and not managed to get out much, then the habit of going to parkrun gets me back going again.

Despite all these personal benefits, parkrun hasn’t just been about me though: Lolly has run 21 times, and officially volunteered on 11 occasions. Even when she hasn’t officially been helping, she has often taken photos, or just turned up to cheer everyone along. My daughter is perhaps better known at Longrun Meadow than I am: she has grown up as part of the parkrun family, though it will be a couple more years yet before she can run herself. I’ve dragged along friends from football, and my brother, to run. My parents have turned up to watch and cheer, and my father-in-law marshalled on Christmas Day, while my mother-in-law chased my daughter around!

Amongst those 50 runs are a few tourist appearances, at Telford, Killerton, Yeovil and Pomphrey Hill. Hopefully we can get around and explore a few more this year – each one has been just as fun and friendly as Longrun Meadow.

After my landmark run on Saturday, during which Lolly marshalled, we were back in the park bright and early Sunday morning for something new. (Well, I was there bright and early anyway: Lolly arrived a few minutes later after completing her week’s long run.) This weekend saw the launch of a new junior parkrun at Longrun Meadow, and happy to help out, Lolly and I both volunteered to marshal.

For those that don’t know, junior parkrun is aimed at children aged 4-14, and takes place on a 2 km route. Although the main parkrun has the same lower age range, it is obviously a lot more realistic for a 4 year old to complete 2 km, rather than 5 km. One of the aims of junior parkrun is to get children running independently, so unlike parkrun itself, all the children can run without an accompanying adult. Because of this, many more marshals are needed for the course: in contrast to the five marshals needed on the two-lap 5 km course, the junior parkrun course used thirteen.

Longrun can get quite… damp.

We were asked to marshal at points three and four, handily, only ten or twenty metres apart, due to the kinks of the course. For the trial run the week earlier, 53 children had taken part, and the Run Director had her fingers crossed for double that. When they charged past us, it was clear that her goal had been more than met. First the older children stormed around. (I’m honestly unsure whether I could match the winning time; I’m going to give it a go soon!) After them came a massive group, followed by a tail of younger children, mostly with their parents. They just seemed to go on and on and on, while the enthusiasm and excitement on show was infectious. Once we’d been stood down by the tail runner, we wandered back to the start/finish, where we were met with a wall of sound: if parkrun is a warm friendly hug of an event, junior parkrun was a massive bear hug of encouragement.

In all honesty, we’d only intended to help out with junior parkrun this first time, and then in times when they were in dire need, but the sheer exuberance of the event is addictive. We haven’t signed up to volunteer again yet, but I think we’ll be back sooner rather than later. Next week, my rehab/training plan means that I won’t be running parkrun… but I’ll definitely still be there!

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?