- Location: Yiewsley, Hillingdon – UB7 8BU
- Terrain: Hard paths, part around a football pitch, part through trees. A little mud, but road shoes were fine when I visited in March
- Elevation: 43m. A couple of mild inclines, but it feels mostly flat
- Parking: Available and large. Free of charge
- Facilities: None I could see
- Attendance: Average, around 250 runners
- Last visited on: 3 Mar 2023
- Number of visits: 1
- PB: 29:04
Stockley Country parkrun: a very new location for London, that is still attracting tourists from all over the capital and Home Counties since several obsessed people (like me) are working towards or want to get back their Lon-Done status. I like the vibe of new parkruns, with that mix of enthusiasm, genuine happiness seeing new faces and a few unique quirks that have not been uniformed to global standards yet. The team of volunteers and the run director were great and fun: great experience!
The location was a nice surprise. Tucked away in the middle of a logistic and office parks next to Heathrow, you find a quiet and green park that looked much better than I expected. The parkrun description mentioned a lap around football pitches, and I usually expected routes including going around squares of grass to be boring, but in this case the scenery changed quite a bit and most of the run took us through forest paths with a real rural feel
The parking lot was near the start and large, with it seems alternative options in the residential roads leading to it. At around 250 runners, there was room left, but if it really gets bigger or if there is an event attractive huge numbers, parking might become an issue.
I did not see toilets or a cafe, which is a bit disappointing, but I’m sure there could have been local options had I asked the team.
Location
Parking
Facilities
Hills (lower is easier)
Terrain (lower is easier)
Stockley Country parkrun starts around the corner from the parking lot, at the edge of the football fields. After 1 short lap around the football pitch (just two sides really before getting under tree cover, then you turn right to go around the perimeter of the park under the trees on narrow hard paths. It is mildly ondulating, but somehow it felt mostly downhill to me, except a couple of short sections. It could be a fast(ish) route, i think
About 1/3 of the way through the lap, you see the footbridge over the motorway, which is shown on my pic above. Not an architectural marvel, but it looks good. Turn right again and after about 500m you pass a nice pond to your right: water features always add to the feel of nice routes. This one is rather small and wild, but it is a nice change
Keep going a little longer and you see where you took your first turn after the initial loop – one more round of the larger loop and you are back for the finish line sprint
When you start the ‘third’ lap and have about 300m to go, you still don’t see the finish line, which appears suddenly to your left after the final straight… i guess if you have fuel in the tanks, the turn to the third lap is a good time to pick up the pace
Heathrow is not only for early morning flights, parkrun is there too!
Short but efficient funnel and you are home, back with the friendly and welcoming team of volunteers. Pretty sure I will be back even if it is nearly 1h drive from home, i wanna try getting a decent time here as well… just for my records obviously, parkrun is not a race 🙂
Stockley Country parkrun Video Highlights
As usual, I have recorded some video highlights around the course. You can see other courses on my YouTube Channel or links to each individual run video highlights on the index of my parkrun course reviews.
8th event for this new addition to the London family, so if you are into it, it counted for the Fibonacci challenge. I originally planned to come test this one out later in spring, since early runner had described it as a muddy one, but I took this chance to come over. Glad i did, no mud to be seen… maybe I was lucky
Finish time just above 29, so not really something I am proud about, but hey, this is not a race and my 24 and change PB is still very far away, even in a good day. I think i could have shaved 60/90 seconds knowing the route a bit better and pacing myself, it pacing is not my strong suite
I ticked quite a few boxes in my fun chase of useless challenges here:
- 1 more new location, getting me to 42/91
- Fibonacci 8
- One S for Snakes, now at 3/10
- One more tick on the Date Bingo
- 29/61 for Lon-Done
A nice run in a surprisingly pleasant park – an excuse to visit a part of London I only get close to on my weekly trips to and from Heathrow… this city never runs out of surprises. I will be back to Stockley Country parkrun to try a better time and next time I will also try to explore a bit to find a cafe and look around a bit
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