Wendover Woods parkrun

A return to slightly longer trips this week brought me to Wendover Woods parkrun for the first time. I had this venue on my sights for a while, since it is often described as a special one. One lap, very scenic woodland trail at the top of the Chiltern Hills, relatively close to London. These ‘Forestry England’ venues are truly special and definitely worth visiting. This was my third one, after Queen Elizabeth parkrun and Black Park parkrun. None of them disappointed.

The decision to pick this weekend had to other motivations. First of all, the weather has finally been dry for a few days, making the risk of a mud bath a bit less overwhelming. And second, I will admit it, it happened to be the event number I needed to complete my Nelson challenge. Yes, I know, number challenges are strictly forbidden… but this is a low number and I had all the higher ones already anyway (except 888). I will atone visiting my local a few more times this year.

Second week in a row without ticking the box on new London venues on my journey towards LonDone. The last additions were my first visits to Lordiship Recs parkrun and Oak Hill parkrun. I will get going soon again, I think, not many left.

Anyway, enough with personal rumblings I’m sure nobody cares about. It’s time to dive into some more info about Wendover Woods parkrun!

Trip to Wendover Woods parkrun and parking

Wendover Woods parkrun is, surprisingly, held at Wendover Woods. The venue is managed by Forestry England and sits in the Buckingham part of the gorgeous Chiltern HIlls. It is a truly beautiful part of the country and being just North/North West of London, it is also extremely well connected and easy to get to.

I think it is fair to say that this is not an easy venue to reach using public transport. According to the official course page, Wendover train station is served twice per hour by Chiltern trains from Marylebone to Aylesbury. Once there, local bus 50 or a long and steep walk are your options. I tried seeing if this was feasible for me coming from Wimbledon and my trusted Citymapper app told me that it was. However, it would me one tube, one train, two busses and a 40 minutes walk at the end. All of it for a total journey time of roughly 4 hours. Each way. So yeah, guilty, I drove.

If you are driving from London or the Home Counties, the trip to reach the venue should be pretty easy, especially if you are within easy reach of the M25. Coming from Wimbledon for me it involved an inefficient but quick trip down the A3, then on to the M25 for roughly 1/3 of the way around the orbital. Then when I reached the North part of the loop, time to turn onto the A41 towards Aylesbury. You then exit near Tring and drive on another major road nearly all the way to Wendover Woods.

Once there, the venue is very well signposted and a last mile along small woodland roads gets you to the large car park at the top of the hill. If you leave the car park before 11am, the cost is capped at £3. This all trip took me a little more than 1h to go and about 2hrs on the way back.

The car park is very large, I doubt it will ever have a problem hosting parkrunners, even if an event happens to be very busy. Like many other similar venues, it is operated by number plate recognition, so remember to pay at the machines before going back to your car. Cards and contactless are accepted.

Once you get there, the visitor centre and the parkrun meeting points are just one minute walk away.

Wendover Woods parkrun: start and briefings

When you leave the car park, you cannot miss the visitor centre. You have probably already seen it when entering the parking area and it is literally 10 metres away from it.

People congregate in the paved area between the car parking payment machines building and the beautiful local cafe. If you have some time to spare, the area is nice and flat and you can familiarise yourself with the immediate surroundings. A beautiful cafe with an outside sitting area on a viewing platform, GoApe and plenty of signs showing the many activities and trails available in the Woods.

Toilets are also available in the area.

One special feature of this venue that I’ve seen before only at Brooklands parkrun: the event team has prepared vests showcase milestones someone might be running on the day. Runners can help themselves to them and borrow them for the run. It’s a nice idea: when I visited Brooklands I just happened to be on my 100th run and wearing one of these things is a cheering magnet.

Once it is time, the First Timers briefing is 100m away towards GoApe. I guess it helps organising the flow of people and it brings part of the field half way towards the start. At this briefing you will get the first hint about the deceiving elevation profile of the course. Don’t discount it, this route is evil and it was designed with at least a little bit of sadistic pleasure. 🙂

Afterwards, you start walking with everyone else another couple of minutes along the same path, away from the visitor centre. Everyone will then stop once you have walked past the whole GoApe area for the Main Briefing. This is well organised and easy to hear, with everyone stopping in a circle around the Run Director.

No need to walk anywhere else to get going. Be ready, I was caught by surprise when the briefing smoothly transitioned into a (very short) countdown. Not a big deal though. Even if you did not start your watch exactly at the right time: you will NOT get a PB here. If you do, write to me and I will offer you a parkbreakfast!

Time to go!

Wendover Woods parkrun course review – star ratings

Wendover Woods parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 223 parkrunners on the day I visited. Looking at historical results, attendance seems to be around 200-250 most weeks and this is a healthy field for this venue. As a one-lap trail run, it is great to have a decent attendance. The field will spread pretty quickly because of the course design, so if numbers were much lower, you would risk having people too spread out from each other. The opposite concern could be congestion, but this is really only an issue at the start for Wendover Woods parkrun.

I don’t think there is any real bottleneck around the course. At the start, people tend to bunch up together and you have to go through a small clearing before turning left, so things might take a few seconds to get going. But that’s all it is: within 10/15 seconds max, people will be running freely. The only bit that might be slightly concerning is the hard turn you can see at the rightmost point in the map below. That’s sharp and it is fairly steeply downhill, which some loose stones underfoot. Not ‘dangerous’ by any stretch of the imagination, but if you end up having a stampede of 100s all getting there at the same time, things could get iffy.

Surface quality is pretty great, considering it’s a trail run. Essentially all of it is on wide hard path. Very limited loose stones and tree branches. I experienced a dry course and in these conditions, road shoes would be ok. I still run in trail shoes because they give a bit more traction, but they were not an absolute requirement. The volunteers said it can get pretty muddy during rainy times, so your mileage might vary.

Elevation is the main theme here. A Gruffalo-sized theme. On a rollercoaster.

Whomever designed the course might have given free rain to their sadistic instincts. I can imagine them laughing a movie-style evil laugh when doing it. ‘We have a great location here, where should we start a parkrun? At the top of the hill, of course! Then we go down a steep slope for 2K. And we let those muppets climb up for another 3K! Fun!’

Joking… maybe. It’s a lot of fun, and the setting is truly great. But it is a pain and half. The first steep climb has a segment dedicated to it on Strava. It is called ‘The Big Bastard’. Yup… that segment deserves its name. Fully.

The course design is pretty simple. It is one of the rare one lap courses, so that is a special treat for all runners. The way it is laid out is the counterbalance to the treat. As described above, it is a loop leaving the top of a hill and coming back to it. Unfortunately, if you start at a high point and go down, eventually, you will have to go back up. Freaking physics, I hate you! The loop encompasses roughly a 2K descent, then The Big Bastard, a deceptive short downhill and then another uninterrupted 2K climb. Just to make a point.

A quick Relive route plot is on my YouTube Channel, with longer video highlights embedded below.

As said, the Main Briefing transitions suddenly into the actual run. For a few seconds, the blob of condensed parkrunners slowly wobbles forward, passing through a clearing under two trees. After a few metres, the viscosity of that indefinite blog decreases a bit and you can start jogging. Soon after that, things open up and it is time to run.

The first part is flat, going around the GoApe area and soon reaching the visitor centre again. This was a surprise to me. You then run along the back of the visitor centre, before turning right and entering the real loop. By this point, you have been running for around 250m. Once you turn, you enter a wider well maintained hard path and start the downhill. The first part of the downhill is not steep, but still pleasant. Soon you will pass by Mr Gruffalo, remember to say hi.

Things keep going smoothly, with a great gentle downhill that gets your blood going and slowly you forget about the warnings volunteers had given you. You forget about the inevitable laws of physics and let yourself go. Yeah, try not to. Or do it consciously, gaining some time here knowing that the end will be an absolute slog inevitably leading to a crap finish time. 🙂

Eventually, the path turns slightly right, transitioning into a more foresty kind of forest. Yes, I think that’s the technical term. It means tree cover on both sides of the path is more dense and mature, obviously. This portion is more flattish, but it is not long and it soon reaches the nearly 360-degree turning point I had mentioned above. Here you will see a volunteer guarding a very sharp turn on looser gravel with a much steeper descent starting at the turn. It’s actually quite fun, if moderately slippery. After the turn, let yourself enjoy the kind help of gravity. Soon it will become your enemy.

Since as people we don’t appreciate good things if they are not peppered with adversity, we now have to tackle a short uphill section. It’s not particularly terrifying and it is not the Big Bastard yet. But your brain might be tricked and think you have bested the worst, when soon that false hill turns into a nice, fast, shaded downhill again. The tree cover on the left starts thinning out a bit here, letting parkrunners start enjoying gorgeous views of the Chilterns.

Then you see another volunteer in front of you and you start approaching them. There is an aura around this volunteer, something is strange. Why there are dark little cartoonish clouds floating on their head. Why they seem to have a smirk that conveys both sadistic happiness and overly-empathic compassion?

You take the turn they are guarding, head right and you know. Here it is.

The Big Bastard.

Strictly speaking, it is not Big, it is steep. But Bastard it definitely is.

Memories of merry downhill paths will soon fade from memory and it is time to climb climb climb. And walk, most likely. After a short very gravelly descent from BigBastard Peak, it is time again for another climb that ends at another left turn guarded by a volunteer. This time the turn itself is a serious climb, but on the other side there is a false flat to breath again briefly.

The left side of the path opens up again, offering great views on the surrounding area again. Yes, you can stop to take a picture. And no, we know you are not taking advantage of the picture-taking opportunity to rest. We know you would never do that.

After a bit of up and down in and out of dense forest, we go back into the forest proper for a few milder climbs interspersed with clearings that offer beautiful views as well.

Then suddenly we pass a small barrier and see the GoApe installations in front of us, We are again on the flat, for the last 200m and the small finish funnel just before the Visitor Centre.

The funnel is very short, probably because this beast of a route is guaranteed to think the field significantly. Everything was efficient at the end and people were particularly friendly with each other. Surviving a course that tried murdering you help bonding, I guess.

Congratulations on completing Wendover Woods parkrun!

Facilities at Wendover Woods parkrun

The visitor centre at Wendover Woods is exceptionally well appointed and it offers anything you might want. For your parkrun visit, but also if you decide to make a day out from it.

Toilets are open early and offer more than enough capacity for the horde of parkrunners.

The cafe is beautiful, it offers a good spread and the staff is very efficient. It has a decent indoor sitting area if you are hear on a miserable days, but where it truly shines is in its outdoor sitting area. The tables pictured below area great, bit if you want even more of a picnic feeling, there are more tables on the lawn just beyond the viewing terrace.

As a competitor to the McDonald’s index, I am continuing to collect data for the parkbreakfast index: how much is breakfast at each location?

At Wendover Woods parkrun, I ordered a single espresso, a lemon soda and a chocolate brownie. This cost £8.05, which is expensive. Kind of unreasonably so, to be honest. But I guess you are paying for the location, unfortunately.

Wendover Woods parkrun: Video Highlights

As usual, I’ve taken a few video snippets during the run to give an idea of the course. If you like it, please subscribe, it’s a fun past time for me 🙂

The other parkrun videos on my YouTube channel are all linked on the course review and video highlights summary page.

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Achievements and performance

Conclusions

This is a gorgeous locations, very well maintained and with a lot to offer. It can definitely offer enough for a whole day out, with family, friends or alone.

The team is very welcoming and friendly. Probably because they know new visitors have no idea what they are going to get and they feel a bit sorry for us. But it is beautiful, it is fun, it is rewarding. A bit far away for me to become a recurring event, but not far enough to be sure I will never be back. I really enjoyed it, so it might happen again!

And obviously, thank you, Wendover Woods parkrun team for your hospitality!