Brooklands parkrun (#100)

My second trip to Brooklands parkrun came at the end of the first week of moderate return to consistent training after loving running the London Marathon, I was back to a leisurely combined 20K during the week and felt motivated on the way to Parkrunday. I want to start training properly again and I have booked a series of races up to October to keep be on it, but getting my parkrun times closer to the times of last year should be enough motivation! 🙂

Today I had Brooklands parkrun on my planner: I ran here once in January and always wanted to come back. It is only 25mins drive away, it’s fun and I wanted to get a better time. Also, when I did my planning, this was supposed to be a Fibonacci event number… which as it turned out, it wasn’t. They must have lost one on the way, no biggie.

For a while I seriously considered going to Kindom for the first time, seemed cool to mark Coronation Day, but when I woke up I could really be bothered to drive 1h and get to see the area in a gloomy, rainy day, so Brooklands it was!

Trip to Brooklands parkrun and parking

The event is just 25 mins down the A3, it is actually surprisingly convenient to get there for me. Easier than several events that are, in theory, closer to me. The benefits of getting out of London I guess. The postcode provided by the official course page (above) played weirdly with Waze and when I had arrived at the final roundabout, it still wanted me to go ahead for a few 100 metres. I had already been there, so I recognised the right turn, but it could be confusing. If you have the same problem, when you reach a roundabout with a large Tesco Mega on one side, the entrance to the parking lot near the start is just opposite. Either of them works well.

The parking is fairly big and at 8:25 it was still essentially empty. It’s a 2 minutes walk to the start location, marked by a covered space similar to a post-industrial bandstand. It is by some play areas that have been arranged on the runaway of the old Brooklands aerodrome. Second week in a row running parkrun by the site of an old London airport, it seems. Funny coincidence,

Parking is free and, to be honest, the area is not particularly inspiring, so I waited until 8:45 in the car, also enjoying a bit of cover giving the annoying rain that started just when I got there.

Brooklands parkrun: start and briefings

Conditions were pretty awful on the day, with rather strong rain and low temperature in May. Definitely not something I, and it seems many others, had expected. And even with them, the volunteering team was super active, friendly, cheerful and innovative. It might also be because of the Coronation special occasion feeling, but I really thought this team had a special vibe: well done guys, you have a great event going here!

Fancy Coronation day dresses, themed selfie frame, flags: cool vibe, truly. And something I’ve never seen before: they gave capes to people running milestones so you could collect cheers around the course. I was one of them: it is a very nice touch indeed.

The start is probably 10 metres walk from where the run briefing happens and it is a very wide space on the tarmac of a former little airport: even with large numbers, there is essentially no congestion at the start or around the course. The way the course is designed means that you are often looping back and forth and while you never share the same path with people running in the opposite direction, you often see a long snaking line of people behind (or in front of) you. Another cool and unusual quirk.

Brooklands parkrun: course review – star ratings

Brooklands parkrun: course review – route highlights

Brooklands parkrun has two nearly perfectly equal laps with a very irregular wiggly design. Excellent surface for 90% of the course, a joy for road shoes and also one for testing carbon plated magic shoes, if you are into those, Flat as a pancake. Except one, turns are wide and gentle. This could be a PB course, I think.

The start is o a wide tarmac ‘landing strip’ and you go straight for 2/3 metres until the end of it, then turn left, do the short side of it and then back all the way to the start and a couple hundred metres more. Simple until here

Then it gets funny. It is still all tarmac and wide, but it becomes the creation of a crazy urban planner. All wiggles and turns and kick backs for what must be at least 3/4 of kilometre. No idea why, but I really enjoyed.

This is not the famous Curly Wurly, but it must be the best approximation you can get around the Capital.

At the end of this bonkers segment, you pretty much double back to the start and then after a few turns you exit the ‘runaway’ area and a regular smiling volunteer shows you the way towards a ca 400m long ‘wooded’ area where the path narrows a bit and you run under tree cover. The surface is slightly more uneven here, but still very good quality compared to many other routes… also, this might also be the ‘local hill’: dont take me too seriously, but it could be even a couple of metres! Brutal 🙂

At the end of the tree lined area you turn left and you are back on a large long straight that gets you back to the start area, ready for your second lap.

The finish funnel will be roughy near the start area, after 2 laps and 1 additional inverted U section before getting there. The funnel is shortish, but somehow it does not cause congestion.

Facilities at Brooklands parkrun

There are no facilities at the event location.

That said, a massive Tesco is just 5 minutes walk away, with anything you might desire available.

Brooklands 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 🙂

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Achievements and performance

Conclusions

This is unusual. And I liked it, a lot.

I wanna try it once more in good weather, I might even add it to my rotating roster of quasi-locals, the course is more fun than some of the alternatives.

I will be back, Brooklands parkrun!