Beckton parkrun

After another long work week in Germany, all I wanted was to sleep in; clearly that’s why I ended up crossing London and visiting Beckton parkrun for the first time.

At this point I only have about a dozen events left to finish my LonDone run, unless new events pop up in the meanwhile. And besides a couple, they are all clustered in the North-Eastern quadrant. Living in Wimbledon, those are far away lands that require a passport and air travel for me, so I am cherry picking the early morning trips. Last week I decided to visit one of the venues I had already ticked, but not covered here, so I ended up swimming 5K in Crane Park. This week my shortlist was Beckton parkrun or Greenwich, but I was afraid the latter would welcome with a swamp again, so picked the former.

I have been intrigued by Beckton parkrun for a while. The course looks quirky and their status as one of if not THE smallest venue in London suggests there must be something special about it. It is not difficult to reach, it is not particularly hard, the team is very welcoming. So why is it not busier? I have to admit, I still don’t know how to answer that question even after having been there.

So here I was, at the second visit to an East London event after the wonderful visit to Mile End parkrun last year. Which event should hold the crown as the real East End parkrun? I thought Mile End could do it, but I now think Beckton parkrun wins in terms of authenticity. There is a strong vibe of a real, unspoilt community event here, while Mile End is very unique but still very ‘urban’.

I loved both, but how often do you find a small, welcoming and authentic event in London? I don’t think there is any venue that matches Beckton parkrun in 2024.

One note for readers. The official course page describes the usual route as roughly 2 laps. On the day I visited (March 2024), there were some works ongoing that caused the Eastern part of the lower park to be fenced off, so the route was roughly 2.5 laps and it skipped that segment. I don’t know how long the works will take and if the route will go back to its normal design any time soon. I guess this gives me a good excuse to come back in the future!

Let’s dive into some more info about Beckton parkrun, then!

Trip to Beckton parkrun and parking

Beckton parkrun is in Newham, just North of London City Airport and not far from the Docklands or the O2 Arena. It is a popular destination for people joining the London Marathon, since it is close to the location where runners have to go pick up their bibs before the event on Sunday. When I ran the London Marathon in April 2023, it was one of the option I had considered, but ended up volunteering locally to maximise rest time.

Being close to very well served and high density areas like Canary Wharf, the O2 and the London City Airport, you would expect to find plenty of alternative public transport options to come here. However, this part of London sees a lot of large urban motorways, canals, tunnels and in general areas that are not easy to walk through.

Public transport options are mostly confined to the DLR and the closest stations are Royal Albert and Beckton Park. These stations are within 200 and 300 metres from the meeting point, according to the official course page. If you are coming from central or West London, be aware that once you get on the DLR at Bank, you might still need to change line in Canning Town to reach your destination.

If you are driving, the meeting point is 2 minutes walk from the Will Thorne Pavilion Car Park. The car park is free at weekends and it has more than enough parking places for current attendance levels.

Beckton parkrun: start and briefings

If you used the car park, no need for navigational help here. Just head to the Pavilion and walk around it. You will see a parkrun start banner in front of you and parkrun flags 100m away after the children playground. However, you might see no one standing next to them. It might be a little bit confusing, but don’t be concerned. Just walk around one last corner of the quirky building and the parkrun crowd will be there waiting for you. A bit hidden away, but not far. :) 

This is a small event. For London standards, this is an extremely small event. When I got there with 15 minutes to spare there were probably more volunteers than runners, which gives it nearly a ‘Continental European’ event feel. It is pretty unique and a nice thing to experience if you are mostly used to mega-events like Clapham, Bushy, Highbury Fields or Hampstead Heath for example.

If you need toilets, there are a couple in the storeroom of the Pavilion that the event team is standing in front of. Nothing fancy, but clean and very welcome if you are coming from far away.

It seems like this is an event that is very well used to welcome tourists and there were many visitors and first timers on the day I visited. Proceedings take a slightly different and less formal shape here. Once it was time for the briefings, the RD asked if there were visitors and told us to go have the First Timers briefing in front of the course map. At the same time, she proceeded to start the Main Briefing with the local crew at the same time. Efficient approach.

The New Runners briefing was pretty unique, with a very detailed description of the course in front of a printed outline. The description is indeed very confusing, but once you are on the course it will be very easy to follow.

After the course description finished, visitors joined the rest of the group to catch the end of the Main Briefing and it was soon time to go. The walk to the start is a gruesome 20 metres and then it’s time to line up along the path where you had seen the start banner earlier.

Then, with very little wait, I heard a countdown… and people started for their weekly dose of parkrunning. Or parkwalking. No parkswimming option available today.

Beckton parkrun course review – star ratings

Beckton parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 64 parkrunners on the day I visited. This seems to be on the upper end of attendance levels for this small event. Indeed, there were several tourists and first timers on the day I visited.

As you would expect, given attendance numbers, there are no bottlenecks along the route. It is a fun, free run. Could there be any if numbers exploded, for whatever reason? Maybe, but nothing dramatic I think. The turnaround point at the end of the out and back point could be somewhere where people might have to slow down, but it is a pretty wide spot anyway. The path gets a bit narrower by the children play area when you start your second (and third) lap, but again, can step on the grass if needed. I don’t think congestion is ever going to be an issue here. Come, run, have fun.

Roughly one third of the route I’ve run is on grass. It was not muddy or slipper, but a bit squishy, making running on it more tiring than normal on the day I’ve visited. This is probably what you experience when there hasn’t been any major raining day on the previous week, but still not on summer weather. The RD suggested that trail shoes might be needed on wet weeks. Road shoes were ok for me. The second 2/3 of the route were on tarmac. Surface conditions were decent, but the paths are definitely uneven with a lot cracks and holes. I think Beckton parkrun can definitely compete with Gunnersbury parkrun for the ‘broken tarmac’ award. Come on Newham Council, do your job. You get money for it from your residents.

Elevation-wise, according to Strava Beckton parkrun nets 6m of elevation gain over three laps. That means 2m per lap, by the way. Have they used a spirit level when designing this park? Probably 20/30% of that elevation gain must be due to swollen concrete bumps. Jokes aside, this is really flat. There are a couple of sharp turnaround that might affect times, but on dry weeks this even can definitely give you a good result, if not an absolute PB.

In terms of course design, the description will sound complicated and messy, but in reality it is not. Bear in mind that what I run and will describe is an alternative route, but differences are not huge. You run 2 laps that start on the perimeter of the fields, then go into the straight out and back and then run around the other side of the fields. On lap 3, you skip the out and back and turn in the opposite direction to add a nice straight on a tree-covered avenue to bring you home. Fairly simple and definitely enjoyable.

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

As said above, everyone lines up on the path around the corner, half way to the car park. It’s on a comfortable, paved path and numbers allow people to be well spaced out. Once it’s time to go, everyone starts running East along the playground and then for a small sections heading towards the football fields. Immediately before the football field there is a small bump. It must be about 1/2 metre, so yeah, this is 25% of the whole elevation along the course!

If you are Ironman-fit and survived the mini-bump, then it is time to enter the grass section of the course. It is essentially running alongside 3 of the sides of a large area with several football pitches in the middle. It is very mildly undulating and the surface was not very hard beaten, so it took a bit more energy than normal. It starts straight, then after a left turn there is an S-shaped portion before turning left again for the last straight alone the side that will lead to re-joining the path.

After leaving the grass area, the course has an interesting segment. There is a short bend on tarmac under mature trees that leads to the point where you will have to change direction between lap 1-2 and lap 3. Here there is a very friendly volunteer who shoes you which way to go… I wonder if he is able to remember 70 faces! 🙂

Lap 1 and 2, it is a right turn. Soon you will be on a ‘rotunda’ that cuts through a nice area with a lake and some landscaped gardens and then, when you exit it, leads to the out and back section. Keep right there, because returning runners will be occupying half of the path and they will run in the opposite direction. I like this kind of two-way sections in running courses.

This segment looks good, under mature trees from both sides. It is also not long and you will soon reach the turnaround point. I guess it must be 100% obvious, because there wasn’t a volunteer here making sure that nobody ended up running and and being lost forever. I guess since at parkrun the team doesn’t necessarily know who started, there is no way to know how many souls have been lost forever here.

For the parkrunners who actually did turn around, there is the return section then. At the end, another volunteer-turned-traffic-warden will then show people where they need to turn right. They will enter a short wiggly section around the lake which turns half way into a crossing of a copse where the trail is covered in tree bark shavings. It’s cute.

Once through, you are back at the edge of the playing fields, but this time on a straight tarmac path. At the end of it, you have reached the pavilion. Here you turn left and go along side the children playing area from the opposite site compared to the start and then quickly rejoin the course for lap 2.

During lap 3, you will turn left instead of right where you would have joined the out and back straight. Here the turn feeds into a beautiful tree lined ‘avenue’ that cuts through the middle of the playing fields area. At the end of it, a very sharp right turn will get you back on grass for the last 50 metres and the finish funnel.

After the funnel, a nice touch for number scanning. This is done by one person sitting at a desk, reminding the glorious early days of parkrun when this was done manually.

Congratulations on completing Beckton parkrun!

Facilities at Beckton parkrun

Very limited facilities available at Beckton parkrun. As said above, there are toilets available, but you will need to wait for the team to arrive and open the storage room up. I don’t think they are, technically, public toilets. So do your bit in keeping them clean as well.

There is no cafe at the Pavilion, so the team is kind enough to arrange basic drinks for recurring runners and guests. They ask for some help if you are a regular here, which seems a very reasonably request to me.

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 Beckton parkrun, there was no cafe, so no entry for my statistical endeavour from this venue.

Beckton 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 this course! It is a pretty unique experience for London, where you don’t really find small, really ‘local’ events anymore. The team was incredibly welcoming, both at the beginning and when marshalling along the course. And the course is fun and unusual, which is what you are looking for when visiting a new event.

The only drawback is the lack of a nice cafe, which I think would sit perfectly in this nice park. But hey, you cannot have everything. And since I ran an alternate course, I have to come back!

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