Sutcliffe parkrun (#123)

Sutcliffe parkrun has been on my target for quite a while and somehow I finally got inspired to visit on parkrun’s Eve this week. It has been at the centre of a lot of my long term parkrun projects for a long time. It was an annoying hole in my Voronoi map, it became the centre of my Bullseye Record Chaser after my trip to Huddinge and it was at the top of my Nendy list.

Why was I procrastinating? I thought it was supposed to be a fast ‘PB’ course and I wanted to keep it for when I would eventually be in better running shape. And that was true: it is definitely a course where people can grab a good time. Not the fastest one in London, but it’s up there.

On top of everything, Greenwich is close to my running heart this year, given the long stretches of the London Marathon and of The Big Half that go through this borough.

I had no parkrun challenges chasing ulterior motives today. Nice exploration, filling up of the fun challenge maps and one more tiny little step towards LonDone.

But let’s dive into some more info about Sutcliffe parkrun: a fairly central event that I don’t see being discussed very often. But it should be: the course is all paved, hence good for all weathers. And it is fast, really!.

Trip to Sutcliffe parkrun and parking

Even if not too far from the centre, Sutcliffe parkrun does not seem to be an obvious venue to reach via public transport. Maybe that’s why it is still relatively small and not too popular.

According to the official course page, the nearest station is Kidbrooke, which is served by Southeastern. It connects to Victoria and Charing Cross, among others. Otherwise several bus services connect it to the Greenwich town centre.

From where I live (Wimbledon), it would take me roughy 90 minutes to get there using public transport, with several changes.

I will admit to my laziness: I went by car. The drive from Wimbledon early in the morning is about 45 minutes, going South and then crossing town via Streatham, Crystal Palace and then Greenwich.

The parking is less than a minute walk from the meeting point and it is relatively spacious. As long as the event does not grow significantly in popularity. It is chargeable, £2 for 2 hours, so pretty cheap for London standards. The online payment option is via an app I have not seen before, Y-Pay. Be ready, if you expect to use it: it worked fine for me, but it has pretty abysmal reviews, so installing and setting up at home would be the safe option.

Sutcliffe parkrun: start and briefings

The car parking and main entrance to Sutcliffe park are straight in front of the Sutcliffe Park Sports Centre main building. If you are there, the walk to the parkrun meeting point will be extremely long: you need to… turn the corner. Yup, you are there already, no need to look for the meeting point or cross long fields under the rain.

This makes the location feel very urban at first impact: you are meeting on a small field, siding a car parking and a modern square gym building. It is not particularly ‘beautiful’ at first sight, but it is convenient: everything you need is just there. Then if you walk 10 metres past the building you can see a beautiful tree lined path and the rest of the park, so the bucolic factor is restored. 🙂

The New Runners briefing happened near a large solitary tree to the left of the start line. About 20 metres in front of the gym building, where people will bunch up if it is raining. I visited on Storm Babet weekend, so raining it was. There is a useful course map on the tree, which is quite helpful if you don’t get here in time to hear the description. However, the nice volunteer holding the briefing went into a lot of detail to welcome tourists and explain what is an extremely simple course anyway.

Once that’s done, you wait for a few minutes and everyone will start lining up by the start line and listen to the main briefing which is held from the field facing the gym building. On the day, probably because of the rain, it was an extremely quick affair, barely covering the H&S warnings. Then you don’t need to walk anywhere, suddenly the countdown started mid sentence and we were on our way for our weekly free, timed 5K.

Sutcliffe parkrun course review – star ratings

Sutcliffe parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 186 parkrunners on the day I visited. Looking at historical results, it looks like attendance hovers around a 180-230 range, so medium-small for London standards. On the day, all New Runners were tourists, which suggests numbers might have been kept lower by the storm. Understandably. If numbers get much higher, I guess a bit of congestion might happen at the start, but there are really no other choke points over the course. It’s a good, comfortable route.

The course is all tarmac and the paths are fairly good quality. A few bumps and puddles here and there, but all in all, it is well maintained and even after several days of rain it did not present any hazards. Road shoes are totally fine and, if dry, I think you can even risk your carbon-plated cheat shoes, if you have a pair and want to try for a PB.

Elevation-wise, this course is extremely flat. Only 6m of elevation gain over 3 laps. Strangely, the only very mild elevation changes I felt were on gently downhills, but I’m sure somewhere we must have made up for those. I just did not really register it. It is just 2m per lap after all.

From the picture below it seems like the first half of the lap goes up and the second half goes down, for what it’s worth.

It is a 3-lap course, which I guess might be mildly boring if you visit often. For my first visit, it was fine. The design is as vanilla and as simple as it gets: there were no marshals on the course and they are not really needed. No chance to get lost and the few intersections are perfectly managed with cones.

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

As said above, you will listen to the briefing from the start line, so pick your place based on expected pace at this point. You will not have a chance to walk to the start or pick your position afterwards. At least on the day I visited, the countdown started suddenly during the briefing. If you are at the back of the line, you might lose a few seconds but it is really not a congested start and the paths are fairly roomy and wide.

The course description will be pretty bland because this route really is very simple. Run around a rectangular park 3 times.

When you start, you get going on a straight tree-lined path. After about 100 metres, you will cross the intersection with the return section, but more on that later. For now, keep going straight until the end of the park, with the scenery opening up a bit mid way, losing the trees on your right.

At the end of this straight, there is a fairly gentle turn right, which will transition runners towards the North side of the park. This was one of the areas were puddles had formed, but nothing too annoying. The North straight is again pleasant, with trees to your left and fields to your right. Towards the end of this section, you can see a nice little lake on your right. Unless you know it’s there (and/or you stop) you barely catch a glimpse of it, it’s not huge and you don’t run straight on its edge.

At the end of this straight, and at the edge of the lake, there is again a gently right turn and parkrunners will now run South on their way back. Here the path gets slightly narrower and overtaking might become a little less simple if you happen to be bunched up. It is a pleasant straight with excellent surface.

At the end, you guessed it, another gentle right turn! It’s very gentle and you will curve for a while before a short straight going towards the car park. This part is again tree lined and shaded (or kind of sheltered from the rain… kind of, obviously, it’s trees, not a tunnel)

At the end, you have the only sharp turn of this course, right again, off course. Now you will be going North back towards the centre of the park to loop around the playing fields, More puddles had formed here, but again, nothing you need to slow down for.

At the end of the fields, shock and horror, a left turn! 🙂 This is on a nice curving path through fields that will end on a little bridge that will connect you to the first section of the course. Once here, you will run 100m South sharing the path with faster/slower runners going in the opposite direction. This shared section can be quite fun.

Get back to the start, loop around a tree and you will be the one going North sharing the path with parkrunners just arriving and heading towards the start area.

Run it all 2 more times, and you will be done. At the end, you turn left into the field just before the turnaround tree to head to the finish funnel. This short section is on grass, as approaches to finish funnels often are.

Funnel and scanning activities were fast and efficient, with plenty of kind volunteers available.

Congratulations on completing Sutcliffe parkrun!

Facilities at Sutcliffe parkrun

The Sutcliffe Park Sports Centre houses a Better Gym franchise which will offer all facilities you might need for your weekly parkrun fix. It looks fairly new and tidy and it seems to offer a nice variety of options for local members.

Toilets are available off the cafe without having to enter the members-only area and they were open before 9am.

The cafe was also already open before 9am in case you need a drink and it will be there waiting for you after your run. It is not huge or fancy, but it does its job.

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 Sutcliffe parkrun, I ordered a single espresso, a lemonade and a croissant. The croissant was surprisingly warm and it tasted better than it looked. This cost £5.3, which is cheap for London standards. Actually, as of the time of this post, Sutcliffe parkrun offered me the cheapest parkbreakfast so far in the UK.

Sutcliffe 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

I enjoyed my visit to Sutcliffe parkrun! It is not necessarily a beautiful, scenic run, but it is extremely convenient and the team are very welcoming. Every you need is there by the start and the laps are fast, flat and on good surface.

I want to come back to get a better time and experience the venue on good weather.

See you next time, Sutcliffe parkrun.

And obviously, thank you, Sutcliffe parkrun team for your hospitality!