All the triathlon prep and stress has meant I’ve got a bit behind with my parkrun write ups so I am just going to write a quick paragraph on each of the above. I will probably have to revisit them all and give them a proper review when I have time!
Southwark
This parkrun would probably be a lot nicer and faster if there weren’t any other people doing it. It is flat, smooth tarmac round a nice but unremarkable park. Toilets available in nearby leisure centre. Unfortunately the 3.5 laps, including an out-and-back, make it feel a bit like going for a run on the A406. At one point I was overtaking and being overtaken and facing another three lanes of traffic coming the other way. The bad habits of other runners are magnified in this sort of situation and I found myself increasingly wound up by a run/walker who kept screeching to a walk right in front of me, a man who accidentally jabbed me in the ankles with a pushchair and a woman who felt compelled to do a calf stretch across the path leading to a bit of impromptu hurdling for me. Time: 36:08
Osterley
This is a really beautiful course! Unfortunately it was not beautiful weather, it was in fact pissing with rain and not terribly warm. It is two laps through the grounds of a National Trust estate with varied scenery – a bush lined path, an open field, a meander through the woods that reminded me of Malahide and then a stretch beside the lake and mansion. The surface was varying kinds of hard to describe “firm paths” – mainly a kind of fine, well packed gravel. The surface got very splashy but it was still a fast course. I must go back and do this one in better weather. Time: 35:46.
Shorne Woods
This is the home run of our fellow tourist Andrew. As the name suggests, the course is entirely through woods, and is on a fine gravel/trail type path with a couple of bridges thrown into the mix. It is very pretty and a good choice for a hot day. It somehow manages to be a rather slow course despite not being particularly difficult and I think this is partly down to the number of twists and turns and partly due to congestion – it is three laps on narrow paths. The start is particularly slow and I was well into my first kilometre before I could run freely. I planned to take it easy, but even so my time seemed astonishingly slow: 37:32.
7:07 