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

I've only been to two:

Forest Rec, Nottingham. A short straight, two laps, then back along the straight to finish. Mostly on paths except for football-pitch length section across grass (x2). Very hilly. Starts with a gentle downhill, flat around the field, then a slow and steady climb along paths snaking through the park. Then a short flat section followed by two peaks, the second particularly steep... then a longish, steep downhill to complete the lap. Looks as if only four people have gone sub-17 mins.

Lloyd Park, Croydon, SE London. Two laps of a fairly flat course, mainly over mud paths and grass. Must be interesting to run in autumn/spring, as it must get quite muddy. One short, steep hill about 2/3 of the way round the course.

http://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/ni-parkruns-bangor/

Flat course, but quite narrow and twisty in parts.

I'm getting more and more convinced to do the Auckland one while I'm over there

Might have to check it for hills first though...

Didn't you have a lovely time the day you went to Bangor?

Definitely do the Auckland one, Pastey, and tell us what it is like here!

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I'm very tempted, but it looks like it's downhill out, and uphill back (wrong way to do these I reckon) and it's a two hour walk from my hotel

Just found out that there are a fair few youtube videos of parkrun courses. Some runners have recorded their whole race, others just one lap.

Ooh, where are they? Anywhere in particular, or just a youtube search?

Just a youtube search. One result for Lloyd Park came up when I was re-checking my time the other day, and I found one for my home parkrun and it looks like there a few others. Don't think they're on any particular channel or in any way official.

Yeah, couldn't find one for my local run (which I must start doing some time), but did find one for the Auckland one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbYl6R6hhu4

Took a lunchtime walk round Victoria Park, where I'd done their parkrun a few weeks back. It's the one with the lovely shelter that spells out "Victoria Parkrun", but it was only when I examined that up close that I realised it was one of those pictures made out of other photographs. I shall add more pix into my blog later.

http://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/ni-parkruns-ormeau/
A lovely course, easily accessible to Belfast types and visitors, with some lovely scenery.

Tracked it here: https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/411309492

The run starts off next to the bandstand, and heads back towards the city for a little bit, across the grass and then along a root infested narrow path for a bit before looping around and coming back towards the bandstand, then heading across more grass before going onto a long, wide road. This heads downhill for quite a while, which seems great until you then turn around at the bottom and come back uphill the way you came. There's a small detour out to a side path for a while that runs parallel to the one you came out on, and then it rejoins the outward route, back past the bandstand and out on the loop again before heading back to the start/finish line.

This could be a good route, but if the long hill wasn't bad enough, getting to the the 4km mark, seeing the bandstand and thinking you're almost done, and then realising you've still got that last loop to do is a kicker.

I was in London this weekend to see my daughter's Saddlers wells debut. I was staying, as usual, with my best friend in Feltham. I discovered that there was a parkrun in Crane Park, quite literally round the corner from where she lives. So I had to try it.

Crane Park is a long narrow space around a river/ stream. The course is 2 laps, the the short tops and bottoms of the route are on footpath by busy main roads. It's pretty flat, has some lovely views including a Windmill or shot tower, and I even saw some squirrels.

My time was lousy though - 97th place, 29:57 and 5th in my age category! They must have a lot of fit 50 year old women in that part of the world. I was also a bit discombobulated by the 9 am start - NI and Scottish ones tend to be 9.30. The crowd seemed to gather very quickly, there was a really short brief, and there didn't seem to be too much hanging around afterwards (and no buns......)

The three I've been to (all in England) have all been 9am. I wonder if there are any Parkruns close enough on either side of the Scottish border so that if you were super-fit and able to run in under 20 minutes, you'd be able to do a 9am Parkrun in England followed by a 9:30am Parkrun in Scotland...

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The ones in NZ we're all 8am starts!

http://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/parkruns-crane-park-feltham/

http://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/parkruns-perth-thats-scotland-not-australia/

Run by the River Tay, so very liable to flooding!

http://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/ni-parkruns-valley/

It's on the side of a hill, so there's a slight slope, but it's not too steep. Paths are inclined (haha) to suffer from rain and so there's plenty of puddles to splash through.

https://dancingatlunacy.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/ni-parkruns-wallace/

Very icy this morning, so lots of the local parkruns were cancelled. I took the opportunity to write up (at long last) my home course. It took a bit of time working out how to include the video, so I hope it's all visible.

Up with the inlaws, so today I continued my tour of Leeds' Parkruns. Today was Cross Flatts, a park in the middle of a heavily built-up area, surrounded by back-to-back terraces.

The run is all on tarmac in a long and narrow park, with a shape like a figure of 8. The start starts on the middle path in the northern end of the park. You do two small clockwise laps of the top half of the 8, which is flat, followed by a long run of the whole park - which includes going to the lower, southern half which involves a fairly gentle slope down and a set of steps back up. On the second long lap you head back to the start line shortly after the steps.

Alas the park (at least it was today) is completely saturated with dog muck and stinks.

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