- Location: Alice Holt Forest – GU10 4LS
- Terrain: Hard paths in a forest. A little mud, but road shoes were fine when I visited in February
- Elevation: 89m. A couple of mild inclines and the brutal Dragon Hill
- Parking: Available, small charge. Accept cards and AP
- Facilities: Very nice cafe and good toilets
- Attendance: Fairly large number of runners
- Last visited on: 25 Feb 2023
- Number of visits: 1
- PB: 30:31
It was a busy day for the Alice Holt parkrun team, with Nelson 444 happening and a horde of tourists descending on this beautiful forest in the South Downs national park. The team embraced it and the run briefing turned into a fun way to welcome all the new runners (apparently, largest crowd they have had) and explain the recent ‘Nelson’ obsession with the majority of runners who had no idea what was happening.
The location is gorgeous, with great facilities and a lush natural environment for a nice morning after your run. The cafe is big and well stocked, with plenty of choice to more than recover the calories you have burnt and the toilets are clean, plentiful and near the start.
The run starts just in front of the cafe, 50 metres walk from the main parking. After a swift pre-run briefing delivered very well by a friendly group of volunteers, the group walks a couple of minutes to a large start area.
The whole run goes through the forest and it starts with a gentle downhill that can trick you into believing this is an easy one. Don’t be fooled 🙂
The top loop on the course map on the left is run twice, two thirds of it downhill… a little section has what’s left of an old brick road and it can get slippery when wet, but I had no issue with my slick road shoes when I went
When the downhill ends, guess what, you have to go back up. This hill is fairly gently and it can be run rather easily… but it is long. You run this loop twice then you turn left for one final loop that includes the horrific Dragon Hill.
It is painful. Yes, I walked part of it… and I am not ashamed of it!
The final downhill can be deceptive because it is long, fast and fun and you start dreaming about a finish section that keeps going down until the funnel. Nope, one last turn and up you go just to make sure you really really need to deserve a closing sprint, if that’s your thing 🙂
Alice Holt parkrun video highlights
This was a Nelson run – more than 400 runners for it with, as the run director said, the largest number of tourists they had ever seen.
A finish time above 30 is pretty mediocre for me, even considering the abysmal fitness level I’ve endured during the last few months (my fault). But I will take it, considering the elevation and the brutal hill.
I ticked quite a few boxes in my fun chase of useless challenges here:
- A for the alphabet, for Namely and for Parkrun
- 1 more new location, getting me to 41/91
- Nelson 444
- The elusive Position Bingo
- One more tick on the Date Bingo
- 9/113 for the South East region
A lovely run in a stunning forest part of a National Park. The park includes miles of hiking and biking trails, a great cafe with plenty of choice and a Go Ape if you want to make a day out of it. Also, it is 5 minutes drive from Bird World – I love parrots and birds in general, so this is well worth a visit
Trackbacks/Pingbacks