Jersey Farm parkrun (#121)

This week I decided to go all around Greater London and more and visit Jersey Farm parkrun for the first time to bag a J for my Alphabeteer parkrun challenge. I am not rushing through it, this visit comes roughly 2 months after I ventured South-West to Queen Elizabeth parkrun for the Q and I will keep with a similar pace until I complete the challenge, I think. I am missing 3 letters: E, V and Y.

E is easy, I will get it at either East Grinstead or Edenbrook Country. Both are on my to-do list anyway for my long term Regionnaire ambitions. The V is similarly something that will happen naturally as I go through my LonDone list, either at Victoria Docks or Valentines. Y is a different story, unfortunately. Maybe I will make a long weekend in York out of it.

The visit this week was a very spur of the moment thing. I would be coming from a tiring week due to a stressful conference abroad (Munich), so I was planning to go to my current Nendy, Sutcliffe. But that’s a relatively fast course, so I really would like to do it on a week when I am in semi-decent shape, at least decent enough to be comfortably sub-29. So on Friday inspiration struck: why not go to Jersey Farm, to run it while it is not a mud feast yet? This was probably a good idea, the course must become comparable to the quicksands of my local (Wimbledon Common) in winter!

After 2 weeks parkrunning using the london public transport network and my last very enjoyable visit to ‘very urban’ Mile End parkrun, the change for an out of town real trail run course was definitely welcome. I like the variety that parkrun tourism allows.

But let’s dive into some more info about Jersey Farm parkrun: the only event in Southern/Central mainland UK that can give you your J! And you can see it from the amount of tourists that attend it: on the day I visited more than half of the field must have been tourists.

Trip to Jersey Farm parkrun and parking

I live in Wimbledon, so for me getting to Jersey Farm parkrun is quite a trek. Not because it’s far, but because it is on the opposite side of London. But I should not complain, since there were several people visiting from much further out than me.

My car was back from the garage, so I checked how to drive there and never really considered public transport since there were problems on the mainline train lines to St. Albans on the morning I visited. According to Citymapper, going to Jersey Farm parkrun using public transport would take 2 hours 30 minutes each way. Tube to Old Street, then train to Hartfield and finally 40 minutes on bus 653.

By car, it is relatively easy: A3 to the M25, then roughly half a lap on up to St. Albans. From there, 10 minutes to the Sandridge recommended car park. It is not bad early morning, but for the way back, it was painful. If you are looking at a similar route, avoiding the M25 and the A3 on Saturday late mornings is always recommended, travel time was doubled by traffic. Public transport or a longer stay visiting the area around Jersey Farm is probably the best choice.

The parking recommended on the official course page is Sandridge High Street, just 10 minutes walk from the start. It is relatively small, but when I visited there was still plenty of availability at 8:30. It is free.

Toilets are, in theory, available by the parking, but they were closed on the day I visited.

Jersey Farm parkrun: start and briefings

If coming from the car park, you get out of it and turn right on the high street. Walk on it for 2/300 metres and turn left and go up a small residential road until one of the gates to the park. Here turn right immediately into a small, barely visible path through the woodland. Now walk through the woods for a few minutes, crossing a larger footpath half way through it and continuing on the narrow path through the trees. Since there are no toilets, the woodland is probably your chance for a cheeky break, if needed.

Once out of the woods, you reach a field with a small patch of trees on the other side. Cross it and go around the tree copse to get within sight of the start and meeting areas.

The start area is on an open field on top of a hill, with a couple of houses to the side. Nice views of the surrounding areas and plenty of room for locals and tourists to wander around before the event.

The New Runners briefing happens by the name banner, next to the finish funnel. Tourists represented more than half of the field when I visited and I wouldn’t be surprised if a substantial portion of it was tourists for most events here. It is, after all, the only option to bag a J for the parkrun alphabets challenge in Southern and Central UK. And it is a very nice event, on top of that.

Unsurprisingly, the local team is used to receiving many, random visitors, so the New Runners briefing is a proper, thorough affair with a good amount of time dedicated to welcoming tourists. A very welcoming team!

Once that’s done, everyone walks 100 metres to the start, where the main briefing takes place and everyone lines up for a wide start on a clear field. The first section is V-shaped on grass that will bring you to the finish funnel side of the field and set you off for the proper longer loops. This short ‘V’ section is flat… enjoy it, it’s the last time you will meet a long(ish) flat section! 🙂

Jersey Farm parkrun course review – star ratings

Jersey Farm parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 266 parkrunners on the day I visited. The volunteer running the New Runners briefing mentioned it was a relatively busy day for them and that potentially around half of the field were tourists.

It did not feel busy, the start area is wide and not conducive to congestion. If you are a mid-pack runner, with similar numbers you will be surrounded by people for the whole event, but it will never get to the point where you have to slow down significantly or are not able to overtake. In some sections, overtaking will need to happen ‘off path’, but it was never an difficult for me.

Volunteers warn new runners that this is a real trail course, with loose terrain, roots and stones. It definitely is a trail run, mostly on grass, hard path or gravel. That said, terrain is usually pretty ok. There are events where it can get much more ‘technical’. I visited on a dry day coming after a dry couple of weeks, so mud was not an issue at all. It’s clear it can get very muddy and slippery during rainy/wet periods, though. I ran wearing road shoes and had no issues, but trail shoes are probably the safe bet October to May here.

Elevation-wise, this course is very undulating, on the verge of being upgraded to the pain-class of ‘hilly’. Except the very first section, you are never really going to be on the flat for an extended stretch. Most climbs are fairly gentle, with the exception of the one on grass up to the start/finish area. That one is made up of one steep section on grass, a short flat looping up to some trees to turn and another climb up in the open. I think that’s the hardest section of this course. Roughly, the first half of each loop is net descending and the second half of each loop is net climbing. Don’t be too excited when you start, what goes down, usually, has to come back up! 🙂

At 65m elevation gain, you definitely feel it, but there are certainly hardest courses out there.

The course is described as a 2 laps one. I guess it’s the closest approximation, but it is more complicated than that. You start with a short V section across the initial field, than one very small loop (ca 700m), one large trail loop (ca 2.5k) and one final smaller loop mostly on grass (a bit less than 2K). It sounds messy, but it works and the course is well marshalled.

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

As already said, people congregate at the start line for the official run briefing and everyone should be ready to go seconds after all announcements are done. I was roughly mid field and had no congestion issues even at a fairly busy event. The mass start is on grass, with people crossing the field in straight line and than turning sharp right to go back to the finish funnel area following a rough V shape. Once you reach the finish area, a sharp turn left gets you going on the first mini-loop.

Here we get on gentle descent on grass for a short while, until we meet a hard path and turn right to keep descending in a small woodland corner. At the bottom of this hill we turn right again and start climbing back up for the final section of the major hill of the course. We will climb this hill 3 times to get back on top of the hill where everything starts and finishes. The next 2 times you have to climb it, it will be longer and more painful, so enjoy your first go 🙂

Once you get back to the top, you run by the volunteers and keep going down the hill for a short stretch before turning left and enter the big loop. At the left turn, you re-enter the woodlands and you will be under tree cover for most of this loop. Essentially, as long as you are under tree cover, you are kind of going down… when the trees disappear, the pain re-starts. Suffering needs to be in full view, apparently.

You will soon reach a stretch going by a road and then the back side of local residential buildings. It is a narrow path nearly the all way on this side, but it never gets so narrow that you cannot overtake or annoy other runners if you want a walking break. At the end of this section, a sharp bend right for a little section on grass and then another sharp turn left crossing a path and back on grass. There will be marshals here making sure you do not go the wrong way and, probably, also that you navigate the ditch and bollards safely. Then it’s off to two more straights under the trees and again, enjoying a pleasant downhill, until you reach the bottom and turn sharp right again on grass.

You remember that first mini hill to get back to the start here? Yeah, now you have to climb two hills to reach the point where that hill started! Watch up from here, to that nice steep(ish) climb on grass, looks fun right? Well, at the top you will have 2 more… enjoy!

The first climb is on grass, definitely not to steep not to be runnable. At the top you turn left and have a short straight with a section of smooth hard gravel as well. Once you reach the end of this part, you turn left and climb a shot bit parallel to the road, before turning left again on the open field and see the top with all volunteers and fast runners chatting.

After you have survived the climb, you go down again, but this time you go straight where you had turn left to get into the woods earlier. This loop is run ‘inside’ the larger one and it is mostly on the grass verges of the woodland.

After the first steep(ish) descent, you turn right and run an S-shaped section until you reach an interesting feature where you run towards the outer loop up to nearly touching it. A sharp U-turn turn brings you back into the fields for one last long straight that gets you back to the bottom of the ‘triple-hill’ you climbed before. At that point you join the outer loop and start climbing again.

At the top of the hill, you now are allowed to turn right towards the finish funnel and there is probably a 40/50 metres straight to sprint for position and time if you want to do that.

Funnel and scanning activities were fast and efficient and you have now officially conquered your (first?) J for the parkrun alphabeteer challenge.

Congratulations on completing Jersey Farm parkrun!

Facilities at Jersey Farm parkrun

Public toilets are available at the Sandridge car park and they are supposed to be open early. However, when I visited they were closed for refurbishment. No other toilets around the event as far as I could see.

Similarly, no cafe in the park and I did not see any cafe around the car park or along the way to reach the event from it.

I am sure you can find one if you venture into the village further, but I did not have a lot of time that morning, so I did not explore the local area.

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 Jersey Farm parkrun, there were no obvious options for breakfast near the event.

Jersey Farm 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

Distance aside, I really liked this course. It is a really fun route, with very manageable, but continuous hills and it mixes grass and trails in a nice way. I usually don’t like running on grass, but here there is always a very well pressed path that makes it very doable.

It is challenging, but not terribly hard. The local team is usual very friendly and welcoming and it really seems like they are embracing their established status as a destination-parkrun!

If getting here were more convenient, I would definitely come back, more than once actually. Given distance, I doubt I will come only to retry it or get a better time, but if I happen to be in the area, I would love to run this event again.

Thank you, Jersey Farm parkrun team for your hospitality!