Wimbledon Common 10K by RunThrough – February 2024

After missing a few weekends, I managed to join the Wimbledon Common 10K to continue on my annual testing of Runthrough races. Ok, not something to be excessively proud of, since I live in Wimbledon, but everything little helps, right? This race took place in February 2024, at the high point of this winter’s English monsoon. Yes, it’s a thing.

Joining this race might not have required a crazy early morning or a long trip across the capital, but I kind of knew what to expect and willingly going to run in the Common in winter tells you something about one’s priorities. It’s a mud feast, it is a struggle, it is an open air survival test. It is many things, but one thing it certainly isn’t is a comfortable road race… or a posh trail run. Not that, either.

Surviving mud baths and wading through knee deep puddle ended up being the theme of the weekend, since I had just visited Woking parkrun on parkrunday, 24 hours before. Woking parkrun was a story of two halves… Wimbledon Common 10K does not try to confuse you: it is a hellishly muddy trail run from the first metre all the way to the finish line. At least it is consistent.

On one of my recent race reports, I wrote about the Richmond 5K comparing it to the local Richmond Park parkrun, because they share essentially the same route. This is not the case for Wimbledon 10K: there is a small section that coincides with the Wimbledon parkrun route, but it is not more than 1k, at most. Probably less. This is its own beast.

I think this is a rather recent addition to the Runthrough stable. They used (and maybe still do?) to organise a 10K in the Common doing multiple laps of a route covering the South half of the park. However, this time the 10K is one lap of the route used for infamous but long-running 2-lap half marathon. I was planning to run the half marathon distance originally, but when I saw the conditions the runners village was in, trading down to 10K was an easy choice. And the right one, no doubt. I highly doubt I would have enjoyed 2 laps here in these conditions, while one lap was a pleasant novel experience.

TLDR: the Good and the Bad about Wimbledon Common 10K

If you don’t want to read all my drivel below, I thought a short summary of the key highlights here could be useful. Still, read the rest as well.

Training ahead of the Wimbledon Common 10K

After having braved The Big Half and the 2023 London Marathon last year, my fitness really tanked. It was probably due to a combination of work and personal stress, limited time and general sloppiness, but I cannot keep looking for reasons and excuses. I need to get myself back on track and this has been a pretty painful process so far.

I have a spot in the London Landmarks Half in April. At this point I have to accept I will not run a great race, but hopefully I can get to the end in a mildly embarrassing time. At the end of the day, completing an event is already better than skipping it outright. I’ve also won the ballot for Royal Parks later this year… let’s move the bar and hope I will be able to do well for that one.

So, let’s be honest, I was not trained for this race. I seriously considered skipping it. I knew with the combined impact of bad fitness, rain and awful mud, it would be an ordeal. It kind of was, but in a masochistically enjoyable way.

Back to the 10K now!

Travel and Start Area

The Wimbledon Common 10K starts at Richard Evans Memorial Playing Fields, in Roehampton Gate. This is an ‘extension’ to Wimbledon Common sitting around its South-Western edge, right alongside the A3. If you are familiar with the area, it is pretty close to the pedestrian and bike crossing that connects Wimbledon Common with Richmond Park at Robin Hood’s Gate. Alternatively, if you often drive by the A3, this is behind the large Asda supermarket that you can see on your right shortly after passing the Roehampton junction.

There are no tube or train stations anywhere nearby. Wimbledon station is probably more than half an hour walk away, and Richmond or Kingston are even further out. If you need to use the train, you will probably want to get your bike on the train with you and brave the major hills that you will find on your way to get here. There are bus options that can get you nearby and from most location you will want to connect with bus 265. Best using an app like Citymapper to tailor your own dedicated route.

If driving is more convenient, you might find some spots in the Asda car park, but I would not recommend it. My suggestion is to get into Richmond Park from Roehampton Gate and then drive South to Robin Hood Gate. You cannot access the park here, but there is a relatively large free parking area. I guess it is positioned here for people who want to walk up to Pen Pond or for people using the equestrian facilities. Once you leave your car here, you only need to cross the A3 and you are within 10 minutes walk from the start area.

Once you have crossed the A3, keep walking until you cross a little bridge and get in front of the playing fields. Here you find a clubhouse with some toilets, but you are not at the starting area. Turn right and follow the path for 3/4 minutes, until you find a clearing in the trees to get into the playing fields again. This is where i could enter the swamp where the athletes village was set. Or wobbling, I guess.

Terrain was absolutely horrendous. I was wearing trail shoes and even then walking around was challenging. I hoped it would not be a sign of things to come but, spoiler alert, it kind of was. Kind of… 10K on this kind of soft mud would not have been possible, but the trails were just slightly better.

One thing RunThrough races offer than not many other organisers do is a fun group warm up before starting, if you are into that. I’m not, but it is still pretty cool for the general vibe it creates. This even combined the traditional Wimbledon Common Half Marathon and the (new?) 10K. The former is two laps, the latter 1 lap following the same route. Start was staggered, with runners braving 21K of mud joining the warm up first and then being sent off through the start/arrival arches.

After they had gone, 10K runners also had their warm up and mud bath and then they were sent to the start line. Probably to compensate for the required distance, the 10K start was not through the arches, but 2/300 metres further, at the edge of the playing fields. Once everyone was where it was supposed to be, a muddy Womble got us all going, straight into the woods. I guess that was a good things, avoiding half lap around the squishy fields.

Wimbledon Common 10K: the Course

The route takes in most of Wimbledon Common, with the exception of the lower section where there are golf courses. There are other races that get to that area as well, using small cut through paths. However, those paths are very narrow and the elevation also tends to be much more challenging if going that way. As a result, some sections go along large roads, but I think this is a good compromise to give runners a chance to experience Wimbledon Common without forcing them to run through its most challenging and wildest areas.

A Relive route plot can be found below and on my YouTube channel as a Short. The full video highlights are also available on the channel and embedded in the next section of this post.

This is a real trail run. Climbs and descents are aplenty, also in addition to the main 2 or 3 hard ones that can be seen below. The path is not clear, even when it is not muddy, there are plenty of roots and imperfections to navigate. I would not say it is ‘highly technical’ as trail runners like to say, but it is not a walk in the park either. Well, it kind of is, but you know what I mean. 🙂

If it has rained, Wimbledon Common gets muddy. Really muddy. Really really muddy. The only other run I’ve seen where conditions were even remotely comparable was the wood section of Woking parkrun. And if you run it in summer and it is not muddy, then you will have to deal with dust, a lot of it. And bumblebees… a few of them like living in the North-Eastern area of the Common and they have forced Wimbledon Common parkrun to use its alternate route plenty of times over the years.

In terms of route layout, it is pretty simple. While you are in it, it might feel you are lost in a forest, at least during the first third. In truth, you are running along the edges of the Common, with the addition of a loop back up and down again on the SE corner. You need to cross roads a couple of times, but these are small roads within the Common’s confines, so cars are rare and there will be marshalls regulating the flow. Runners always go first, don’t worry.

Wimbledon Common, or the Common as we locals tend to call it, is a wonderful local treasure. Such a gorgeous relatively natural space in the middle of London is clearly rare and we are lucky to have it on our doorsteps. You can find more information about Wimbledon Common here.

As said above, if you have joined the 10K instead of the HM, you will not start under the start/finish arch. Instead, you will walk onward from the arch and stop just before the entrance to the woods. This saves you from running half lap of the playing fields, which is great on a muddy days, because the surface here will be horrible. Once you start, it is immediately time to enjoy the best this course has to offer: a steep trail hill. With roots and rocks and a lot of other funny surprises.

The start segment will follow, roughly, a straight direction for a bit more than 1k, but it won’t feel straight. As trail runs often are, it is twisty and turns and after the initial steep elevation, you will get to enjoy a fun and enjoyable descent that will make you stop thinking you were a moron for joining this race. When I went, fun was slightly impaired by the mud. Here it would be great to let go and try to pick up some speed while trying not to trip on a root and break your neck, but on the day of this February race, too much speed could have created a mild mud tsunami if several people had braved their way through the quicksands at full speed. This was more obstacle run, than a proper race. Especially during the first half of the race, some sections were fairly difficult to stand on firmly, with plenty of people slowing down to a walk and tip toeing over the edges of the path or jumping from rock to rock.

I’m always impressed by the brave runners you just cut through the muddy areas, sometimes disappearing in the mud from their torse down. 🙂

Soon, if you have not drowned in the mud, you will reach the top of the hill, which roughly coincides with the area where the A3 meets the junction to Roehampton. From here till nearly the end, elevation changes will be minor and most of the route will be on the plateau the East section of Wimbledon Common sits on. After a short loop back towards the centre of the park, the route turns left again to go further North, towards the area where the Eastern path goes towards a pedestrian underpass connecting to Putney Common. You will obviously not turn left here or you might get lost and find yourself in Putney and on the Thames. On a day like this, you could have mistaken the Thames for one of the puddles on the actual race course, but usually you would probably realise you had taken a wrong turn at that point.

Once you have reached the Northernmost bit of the course, it is time to turn right and starts wobbling through mud on a South-bearing direction. If you are crawling through mud and cannot find your bearing here, watch up and follow the migratory birds towards their dry and sunny destinations.

Eventually then, a mild turn left, brings you back in a diagonal direction towards the centre of the Common.

This will lead you to the central hub of Wimbledon Common, where you can find a large car park, a nice cafe, the clubhouse of the golf club and the ‘famous’ Windmill. The picture below is not from the day, obviously, because the sky shows some blue. It was taken when I visited Wimbledon Common parkrun last, in autumn. The route just touches that area, then turns left again before crossing the road that allows cars to reach the car park. After crossing, you turn left and run 200m alongside the road before turning left again and running alongside the edge of the park until, nearly, its Southern edge.

More puddles, more mud, more rain. Maybe a little less life threatening then before though. One you get to the end, you might be excused if you think you only have one side of the park to cover before reaching the end. You would be wrong, because why not enjoy a bit more mud, right?

At the Southern corner, a sharp 360 degrees turn brings you back up, with a slight Western-leaning twist. This path will head towards the Windmill again. You will not reach it though, turning nearly 360 degrees back about 100m away from it.

It is now time to run along the main central ‘avenue’ in the Common. This is a slightly better pressed path, but it will still gift you fun puddles and mud traps to negotiate.

At the end of this straight there are a few twists and turns to reach another road crossing and a short section through open fields. Soon, it will be time to enter the woods again and start a long, awesome, welcome and heavenly downhill straight. Probably about a mile long and the elevation was so welcome that I don’t even remember the mud that much here. This is you final straight home. Or is it?

At the end of it, you are just by the playing fields where water and nuts are waiting for you. There is a group of people cheering, a few Marshalls, so… why do they show I need to turn right again?

Because whomever designed this course did not want to spare us one last sadistic surprise. Yup, you are not allowed to enter the playing fields from the lower ground. You have to turn right again, climb a vile hill and turn left at the top of it, to enter the fields from their highest points. Because, why not, right?

Once you enter the fields, the last 100/150 metres are there for a victory sprint! Or not, since they will be squishier than a panna cotta and running will be beaiscally impossible. So one last wobble through mud until you can proudly roll over the timing mats and receive your medal. Yup, that’s real proof you have survived the Wimbledon Common 10K in Winter! Or Autumn. Or Early Spring… i

You made it! Enjoy a chat with the other runners and the rest of your day now.

Facilities

Small events can often still seem genuine and friendly gatherings of amateur runners without many of the bells and whistles of mass participation events. There is room for both and both are great. That said, there is organisation involved in making sure even just a couple of 100s runners can show up and effortlessly enjoy their distance. And issues can easily spoil the experience. This is not parkrun after all, you have paid for it.

Lets go over my thoughts about some of the items that can affect the experience then:

• Transport to start line: not obvious unless you drive
• Start area(s): not overcrowded, but a mud bath if it has been raining
• Kit drop: I did not use it, but it is available and covered
• Start area toilets: no dedicated facilities. Portable cabins at the start
• Waves system: by estimated pace
• Start section: not very congested
• Course: fairly unique real trail run and 1-lap 10K for London
• Toilets: none on the course
• Water stations: 2/3 of the way in
• Gels: none
• Finish line: ok location, efficient setting
• Bling: nice medal
• Finisher T-shirt: none
• Finisher refreshments: basic

Wimbledon Common 10K Video Highlights

I have prepared video highlights that I hope you will also enjoy. I do this for most of my races and parkrun events I attend, it’s a fun hobby for me. If you enjoy it, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I am very far from monetising it, but it is always nice to see someone appreciates it..

If you enjoyed this report or the highlights, you can find an index to my parkrun reports and an index to my race reports on these links.

Conclusions

This is a pretty unique, truly trail-runnery route for London. It is fun, more fun than the usual 10K route I’ve run with Runthrough in Wimbledon Common, that was taking in several laps starting from the Cannizaro House area.

The mud is groesome and the initial elevation is painful, but it is a fun experience. It is definitely worth trying at least one in wet conditions. Then you will be curious to try it in dry weather. I know I will!

Did you run as well? Let me know your thoughts!

Do you want to run it, but think you cannot? Let’s chat, anyone can do it, really!