Upton Court parkrun (#114)

My return to London parkrun events was brief and this week I decided to visit Upton Court parkrun for the first time, to get the U, one of the last few letters I am missing in my Alphabeteer parkrun achievement.

The other missing ones are E, J, V and Y. The first three are easy… the Y might be a bit more painful to get to.

Upton Court Park is not far at all and it is strange I had not been here yet, since I’ve visited a lot of the venues around it, Black Park, Stockley Country, Bedfont Lakes and Homewood to name a few. While working around it, I noticed it was supposed to get really muddy during winter and, in general, I am not a big fan of grass routes. I guess none of those excuses held anymore now and, being in August, if I waited in longer we would be back in mud season.

As recommended by the course page, I did not head for the Rugby Club parkring, which is just by the start. It is extremely small and, it seems, it is also closed off during parkrun time, probably to avoid being invaded by runners. The recommended parking is large and free, just on the opposite side of the park. It was already pretty busy at 8:30am, so come with some time to spare, also considering that you will need to jog/walk for 5-10 minutes to reach the start from here.

Trip to Upton Court parkrun and parking

Not the easiest to get to with public transport, but definitely possible. According to the official course page, from Slough train station, there are bus options to reach the park (routes 76, 81 and 58 at the time of writing). If I look at Citymapper, from where I live, it would have taken me roughly 2 hours. Tube to Paddington and the GWR towards Didcot Parkway and off in Slough. Then bus or 30 minutes walk.

So, lazy me being lazy me, I drove in roughly 45 minutes. From Wimbledon, it is essentially all motorway. Off to the A3, then M25 and then a short bit on the A4. Roadworks are a plague during August, but early mornings are usually a breeze, especially if it is parkrunday..

The parking is probably 300 metres from Orpington parkrun meeting point and people coming together are visible from it. The main parking is not huge, but there is an overflow just to the side of it which seems to be more than enough on normal weekends for an event that gets around 120-150 runners on average. As of August 2023, parking here was free.

Upton Court parkrun: start and briefings

The parking is in front of a small children play area and a cabin that is apparently used as changing areas. I don’t think there are toilets inside and it looked closed when I got there. The parking area was pretty big, but by far the busiest I’ve seen at 8.30am on a parkrunday, maybe with the exception of Bushy. I doubt this was all because of parkrun, so the park must get a lot of early morning fitness visitors.

On the cabin, there is a ‘permanent’ poster plugging parkrun. A nice touch, I don’t think I have seen at other venues before. Combined with the permanent km markets along the course, I think these are signs that parkrun really has taken a stable place in the hearts of this community. Nice!

Once you get past the little cabin, you are straight in the park and get a good idea of what this venue is about: wide green spaces with walking and running trails and a few trees at the edges and in a central ‘island’. From here, at 8:30am I could already see a steady stream of walkers in milestone t-shirts crossing diagonally towards a spot far away with a lot of people standing next to each other. Kind of telling of what was there. However, before starting to cross the meadows, give a lot to your right: the tree lined Avenue here will be part of the parkrun course and it offers a great photo opportunity with a beautiful view of Windsor Castle (above and in the video below).

The meeting area was, not surprisingly, where all those people were standing at the opposite end of the park. It’s by the Rugby Clubhouse, in front of playing fields. The clubhouse is very basic, but it has toilets and some indoor and outdoor tables.

It seems they take the New Runners briefing very seriously here, because I got there late(ish) when they were starting it, spent 5 minutes to go to the toilet and back and when I got back there I still managed to catch 2/3 minutes of it. I am a bit disappointed I could not listen to it, the volunteer holding it looked extremely enthusiastic and friendly.

After the new runners briefing, everyone walks 100 metres to the start line where a fairly quick and efficient run briefing happens before everyone gets going for their weekly parkrun.

Upton Court parkrun course review – star ratings

Upton Court parkrun course review – route highlights

There were around 190 runners on the day I visited: a fairly well attended, established venue. However, definitely no issues with start or course congestion. The start is on open fields, so people can spread out widely and more than one KM stays on a similar configuration. There are loose paths around the fields, but it is not a real path, more of a snaking around the edges of the park following the cones. You can ‘run the line’ or take a wider one, depending on the number of people around you.

I would say about 2/3 of the course are on open grass. It is cut short and well tended and, at least when I was there, the soil was dry and hard, so it was surprisingly pleasant to run on. It had rained a lot on Friday night, so I came wearing trail shoes, but I think road shoes would have been fine as well. Funny thing, for a few 100 metres, the course goes along a paved path, but the instruction is not to go on it. Funny quirk. I wonder if it is to hit the 5K target distance or if it is not to overwhelm a walkers path… either way, it works fine. A short(ish) section is paved.

In terms of elevation profile, it is flat. Not as flat as a professionally baked pancake, but as a home cooked one that had a few bubbles of air get into the mixture. It is really just one bubble to be honest, shortly after you turn left the first time after you start.

The route encompasses 2 laps and a bit… During the first lap, you go around one additional field (top right in the map above), and during the second lap you short cut it staying on the paved straight until you turn left.

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

The start is probably 100m back from the clubhouse and then you start running towards it, on elevated ground. After about 100m, you turn left and you keep running alongside the edge of the field, roughly. Soon you will pass by a little tree copse and then run in between some taller flowers (?) and hay. Not sure what it was, but it was kind of cool and it breaks the potential monotony of running squares around grass fields.

After this short section, it’s quickly time to turn left to continue running along the side of the park. Things are kept interesting here because, even if the route plot seems relatively straight, in reality it gets fairly twisty with one interesting deviation back inside the park to go around a tree and back to the edge.

Eventually you get to the cabin you had met next to the car parking (if that’s how you came) and you turn left into the tree-lined avenue that looks straight at Windsor Castle. Nice view and fast surface for a short while at least. Roughly half way through it, and only during the first lap, you turn right and go around the additional field.

The first side of this ‘square’ is run on hard paths under trees, which gives parkrunners another welcome change of scenery.

Once the 3 sides of this meadow are dealt with, it is time to turn right and you will find yourself at the end of big avenue, just in time to greet a Marshall and turn left and start the last Southern side of the route. Watch right, there will be another nice view of Windsor Castle.

It is mostly straight here, with one wiggly fast left-and-right with a small bridge roughy mid-way through it. It is fun.

At the end of it, you see the clubhouse again and, at the end of the first lap, you need to turn left just before it, climb a small bump and start lap 2. As said before, the only difference this time will be that you will be enjoying the paved, large avenue down to its end avoiding the mid-point detour.

And soon, you will reach the finish funnel and be home, with one more event under your belt.

Facilities at Upton Court parkrun

The rugby clubhouse next to the initial meeting point has got toilets open from 8:30am. It is a very basic building, but the toilets are open early enough and are clean, so no complaints there!

The cafe is also on the same building, but calling it cafe is probably an overstatement. It is better than nothing, but it kind of a relic of bygone era in terms of what it serves. Good enough for drinks and warm (greasy) food, if you want that and certainly, it is better than nothing. But you will not get healthy options, gourmet pastries or even an espresso here. It’s filter coffee only 🙂

Well, I had a proteine bar and a Diet Coke and I was a happy camper sitting outside under the August dark sky.

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 Upton Court parkrun we kind of met an outlier which will be difficult to compare versus my usual parkbreakfast choices. That said, one energy bar and a Diet Coke set me off £1.8. Yup, 1.8, kind of retail price.

Upton Court 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

It is a really nice location, with a great team of volunteers and it feels kind of flat, which is a nice thing after the last few hilly weeks. The map looks fairly boring if you have not been there, but the terrain offers enough different views and sections to make it a very enjoyable run.

Thank you, Upton Court parkrun team for your hospitality!