h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone else seen or tried these:
http://www.parkrun.org.uk/

They take place each Saturday at 9 am and are free to enter.

There does seem to be a fair spread across the country, and there is one near me which I might give a go.

Deke

There is one near my in Edinburgh, It would be difficult timing wise, I have trouble finding the time to run anyway and driving half an hour to do it would be even more time consuming.

Secretly I just love running over the Forth Bridge! It's exactly 5k and the views are amazing.

I remember that view. I crossed it on a motor bike once and almost got blown off it.

Deke

They've recently started doing park runs in Heaton Park, which I live next to. I went out this morning and did the 5k (31:56) but not with the main runners, in fact we were finishing as they were getting ready to start.

There was a lot of people of all fitnesses taking part, and it looked like good fun.

Isn't there a tram museum in Heaton Park? Did you cheat and jump on a tram?

I'm enjoying attending the Eastleigh Parkrun.

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I really ought to do their course again and see what sort of time I get these days

Would it be useful/interesting if people who've used Parkrun describe the routes they've done here?

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The course is all on grass, and there are 3 laps. The first half of the course is flat, then you head uphill for a quarter, including a steep section between the trees, followed by the final downhill stretch, which can get very slippery, before you swing round to the start and flat bit again.
Look out for tree roots, especially as the route turns from being uphill to downhill.

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I'm working my way through all 18 of Norn Irn's parkruns - I've done 7 of the courses so far.

I've been out of action fro a while - fell and fractured my ankle in May, so I've only done one or two 5 k runs since then, and the times have been slow.

BUT, I get to do my 49th one this Saturday, all being well should do my 50th next week and get my mitts on a very hard earned red T shirt! I know it wont be a PB, and in a way it's nice to have that added pressure taken off.

My home pr is Wallace in Lisburn, 8 miles south of Belfast. There's one short inner lap to start with (and it's slightly uphill, so take it's wise to take it easy), followed by 3 large outer laps, which include a rather testing hill. The third time you face that, you know about it.

I usually run with my cocker spaniel, and her main job is to pull me up that hill

Ooops and it's all on nice wide tarmac paths, with only the occasional jogger/ dog-walker/ cyclist/ pram in the way.

We have 2 or 3 regular buggy-pushing runners, and there's usually a few other doggies running with owners as well. (well behaved, and on short leads, natch.)

Eastleigh has a few dog-walking runners, but I've never seen anyone trying to push a pram round the course, and I wouldn't recommend it. Even when there isn't any mud, you've still got the steep uphill section between the trees where there's only just room for 2 runners abreast, followed by the top of the hill, where you weave through the trees and try to avoid tripping on the numerous, and some quite large, tree roots. Not practical with a perambulator.

Make sure you let us know when you get to the 50th! I'm over a quarter of the way to my red t-shirt, though it is scary to think that if I was half the man I am now I'd have a white one...

And tell us more about the other ParkRuns you've done. Next month I'll be up in Leeds visiting the inlaws, and they have 4 parkrun routes there, so I'm trying to decide which one to go to.

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The park run in Heaton Park is nice, but I think it's in the wrong direction. I've not done it with everyone else, but I do the route occasionally on my own.

It starts off at the back of Heaton Hall, which is a very wide, packed gravel path. The run then turns left and goes around the front of the hall before turning left again and heading down a long, gentle slope of wide tarmac path followed by a long, pretty flat stretch before turning left again by the boating lake. This winds just a little, but is still wide and flat tarmac. It then turns left again and starts up a quite steep slope, before turning left again onto a narrower path that goes downhill again, before heading up into a small wood and then down again to rejoin the big wide tarmac path from earlier at the bottom of the long slope.
You then do the longish flat again, but keep going around the back of the boating lake, which is quite wide, but mostly packed mud which can get quite wet. This curves around to the left, following the lake, and rejoins the route from earlier at the base of the long, steep slope. So the last kilometre starts with a long, steep uphill slog, before then going through the woods at the front of the hall, which is still tarmac and quite wide, but does undulate, and coming out to finish with a short uphill section and a longish, flat straight.

Personally, finishing with the long, gentle uphill slope seems like a much better idea to me than the long steep uphill slog, but there you go

I do a blog entry (dancingatlunacy) each time I visit a new venue, and I also meeted-and-greeted both a group of Strathclyde parkrunners who did all 18 over a Fri-Sat-Sun, and a local group who managed it in just a Sat-Sun. There are 5 in Belfast, which would make a nice one day challeneg, I think.

In August, I shall be indulging in my other passion of Scottish Dancing, and spending a week at a course in St Andrews. And there's a parkrun there, so I hope to bag that one while I'm in the vicinity.

Although part of me is quite tempted to visit other ParkRuns in the area, such as Winchester –the Southampton one is talked about with awe, as it is all on tarmac and almost completely flat – at the moment I'm doing quite well in the Eastleigh ParkRun Male Points table (13th out of 350), and I hope that if I stick to going to Eastleigh I might get in the top ten (provided everyone who is faster than me keeps going away on holiday and don't run over the winter) which isn't bad considering I always seem to be placed around 40-50.

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https://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/ni-parkruns-st-andrews/

Okay - definitely not in the same class as St Andrews. There are 4 courses in Leeds, and this is the first and closest to the city centre. No white castles or miniature railways. The course, in Woodhouse Moor Park, is flat and all on tarmac, so quite a fast course.

The park is diamond shaped and the start is at the southern tip of the diamond. Head straight north across the park to the northern corner, then turn left to run anti-clockwise all the way round the park twice, and on the third lap the finish is at the eastern corner, next to a statue of Queen Victoria.

I had hoped to do the Temple Newsam Park Run next week but sadly the Leeds Festival is being held there.

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http://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/ni-parkruns-victoria/

Right beside the airport, should you ever fancy a visit, this dead flat, picturesque course around a duck pond and island in the shadow of the famous Harland and Wolff cranes has some of the best post-run buns!

Looks super organised, complete with a Parkrun bench and dedicated signage! Today I went to Leeds Roundhay, where we made do with a chalk line and not even any direction arrows or distance signs.

Roundhay Park is definitely the hilliest run of the 3 I've done - nothing is flat. It is 3 laps of a roughly triangular course all on tarmac that starts near the Roundhay monument, heading up a long uphill to start before turning left on a theoretically flat bit, but a sloping path means that your left leg has a couple of inches further to reach the ground than your right leg, before a steep zig-zagging downhill stretch to the long, straight uphill again. The finish is at the very top of the hill on the 3rd lap, which makes it very difficult to do a sprint finish.

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You know you're a serious parkrunner when.......

I'm coming to visit that Lahndan in October to see my daughter's debut at Sadlers Wells. Staying with a friend in Feltham, I've been looking up the nearest parkruns to see which one I can aim for while I'm there. The famous Bushy Park one isn't too far away, but the one at Crane Park is literally walking distance round the corner. Anyone want to join me?

Although it is tempting, if I caught a 6:10am train I could theoretically get to Crane Park for 9am, but what would I do with my bag? I think I'll stick to Eastleigh.

Southampton's Junior ParkRun takes place at Riverside Park, aka Bitterne Park, and not Southampton Common where the Southampton ParkRun is held. It is a 2k course, mainly on tarmac but a short gravel stretch on the first lap. It starts close to the large carpark close to the Woodmill Activity Centre and tennis courts, and involves a large loop around the top section of the park, down as far as the former bowling green, before looping back before the park narrows and gets to Cobden Meadows. The second lap is shorter and loops back just passed the football pitches.

Bitterne Park is lovely and has a great miniature railway on Sunday afternoons in the summer, but sadly Southampton's sewage works is located across the River Itchen. This means that sometimes there is a pong of sewage, especially when the sh** ship has docked (a barge that they fill with effluent sludge before taking it downstream).

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