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

3rd Nov
Saturday is parkrun day. Parkrun first started in 2004 when a Paul Sinton-Hewitt of the South London running club Ranelagh Harriers, dreamed up a 5000 meter time-trial that was to be open to everyone and free of charge. The inaugural event was held in Bushy Park on the outskirts of Hampton on 2 October 2004. Thirteen runners took part and from that the phenomena that is parkrun began.

To my eternal regret I passed up an opportunity to take part in that original event. Previously I had been a member of Ranelagh and my son mentioned that that ‘they’ were organising an open run in Bushy and did I want to go along. At the time I was more into the longer distances and anything shorter than 5 miles was more like a warm-up than a run. I seem to remember declining with some derogatory comment. Little did I know what it was to become. Some years later I saw a picture of the start of that time-trial and could recognise at least three runners that I knew from earlier days and had run with for Ranelagh in various road and cross country events.

Fast forward to 2015… now retired and looking for some running events that didn’t require silly money to participate, to supplement the paddling training to improve the aerobic efficiency. It was fairly natural then that I’d fall back to running as a natural resource. I found parkrun on my doorstep. Actually, by that time it was practically on everyone’s doorstep having spread around the country and abroad.

Back to today and my participation in parkrun. My runs total 83 as of today. They are split between Bushy Park which is the closest to me and Richmond Park which is only about five miles away. They are both beautiful locations and it’s a real pleasure to get out for a run with others that can provide the competitive element to make you work harder and produce times that would be much more difficult to achieve by yourself.

The two courses provide quite different challenges from each other. Bushy is as flat as a pancake with a semi figure 8 course and the good paths make fast times possible. Richmond is er… undulating. The first mile and well into the second is predominantly downhill. The last mile provides a long uphill gradient that initially saps the strength from the legs. At the end of the gradient a short, sharp uphill rise is hidden as the path turns right around the edge of a copse then suddenly descends as far down as you’ve just come up. At the bottom it rises again in a full blown hill of about a hundred yards, flattens out, then up again to the finish. It’s at this point that my heart rate monitor tells me I’m maxing out.

My parkrun this morning was at Richmond which followed the usual format. About a half hour warm up and stretching while edging nearer to the start. Taking on board the race directors last minute instructions and applauding the volunteers and, in today’s case, the couple that are parkrunning this morning and getting married this afternoon. Lining up at the start, then the off. A hard run throughout tailing a runner designated as a pacer for the 26 minute slot. Up today not having quite enough puff to overtake. At last the finish right on the 26 minutes.

I can think of better ways to spend a Saturday morning, but not many.

I do parkrun too but have yet to get to Bushy Park, though I've been lucky enough to meet Paul Sinton-Hewitt. I've done Southampton which is the UK's second busiest after Bushy, I must admit that I have to work out how to get to Bushy Park by South West Trains. I'm on 204 parkruns myself.

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Ha!
I’m just making out a journal entry for today. Can you guess what the subject is?

I hope you can make it to Bushy at some time. The closest station to the park is Hampton Court. It’s no more than a mile away from the start, an easy walk/jog/run.. That station is an end of line and it’s on the other side of Hampton Court Bridge from Bushy.

I think there would be a couple of changes to get there though. I ‘think’ there’s a direct line from Portsmouth to Surbiton, then on to HC. If you need picking up from a station though we could probably arrange something if that’s any help.

Deek

It looks surprisingly doable, as long as there are no strikes, engineering works or rail replacement I should actually be able to get to Hampton Park by 8:15am, all I have to do is get up at 5am.
I might well do that in the New Year - my homerun often gets cancelled when it floods so it'll be good to have a back-up plan.

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