Edenbrook Country parkrun

Diversion away from London this week, for a very interesting first visit to Edenbrook Country parkrun.

Usually in spring and summer I try to visit the countryside a bit more. Courses that tend to be muddy bogs during winter can become beautiful green destinations. Not that this year we have experienced any kind of spring yet, but at least it has gotten a bit drier. This week, I had also noticed that Edenbrook Country parkrun was hosting a sub-100 Wilson Index event and that sparked some motivation to start using that parkrun challenge as a motivator to visit new venues as well. So after a fairly local visit to Hanworth parkrun and two excursion to the Far East to visit Barking parkrun and Harrow Lodge parkrun over the last few weeks, this parkrunday brought me to Hampshire.

Edenbrook Country park is a peculiar place. Sitting in a beautiful area on the border between Hampshire and Surrey, it is pretty much fully man-made. It was developed as the green extension and ‘community fee’ part of a newly built high end housing development. It looks pristine and landscaped in places and more rugged and (kind of ) natural in others. But it works and it is without any doubt a great location to host a parkrun.

The event is run on hard paths and, apparently, it has a tendency to flood or get very muddy. The volunteers mentioned this was the first parkrunday in 2024 without a dry course. Kind of surprising to me, but only because there have been a few dry weeks… besides that, living in Wimbledon I am no stranger to muddy parkrun courses.

Anyway, enough with my rumblings. It’s time to dive into some more info about Edenbrook Country parkrun!

Trip to Edenbrook Country parkrun and parking

Edenbrook Country parkrun is located on the border between Surrey and Hampshire, in the territory of the latter. An area with major motorways and rail lines, it is easy to reach from London or any area in the South.

According to the official course page, the closest station is Fleet. The station is managed and served by Southwestern, on the London Waterloo to Basingstoke line. Unfortunately, when you get there, you are still 2.4 miles away from the parkrun meeting point. Maybe you could bring a bike with you on the train, or take into account of the distance for your warm up jog.

If you are coming by car, the area is nestled between the M3 and the A3. The former is slightly closer to the venue, but both are very convenient.

At the venue, the team asks not to use the Leisure Centre car park and we should respect this. If you are coming early, keep going for a few 100s metres and you will reach the free country park car park. It is not huge, but it is very very close to the meeting point. I arrived at around 8:30am and it was still roughly half empty. If you are out of luck here, the school on the other side of the roundabout that leads into the venue is kindly offering its parking space for parkrunners on parkrunday mornings. This might mean that you have to move the car shortly after the event, because the team has to close the gates. Not sure how long they stick around for coffee and a chat.

Edenbrook Country parkrun: start and briefings

If you were as lucky as I was and managed to leave your car at the smaller Country Park car park, then you are essentially sitting in front of the meeting point. And by the first 200m of the course, but more on that later.

Just leave the car park and join the paved path were no doubt plenty of people are already arriving or warming up. Head towards the Leisure Centre and after the first turn you will see where people are already coming together. The familiar parkrun banner is on a tiny hill, with the parkrun name sign just underneath, ready for pictures and selfies.

Toilets are open early and available inside the Leisure Centre, just enter through the main doors and turn right towards the cafe.

The New Runners briefing takes place by the little hill. This seems to be a venue popular with tourists, because when I visited there was a single real new joiner, with about a couple of dozens of tourists just there to hear about the route. The volunteer who welcomed us noticed how this was the first parkrunday of 2024 without major wet areas along the course. Things must be fun in winter here.

Afterwards, everybody lines up on the path heading away from the Leisure Centre. The path is pretty narrow and things will be slow for a a short while. There are signs to help runners position themselves based on expected finish time/pace. As always, compliance is inconsistent, but being roughly in the right spot is helpful. The Main Briefing is given while already lining up to start and it is a fairly quick affair. But as always, the team goes out of their way to give it a personal touch and welcome tourists.

Then, without any need to move elsewhere, you hear the countdown. 3, 2, 1.

Time to go!

Edenbrook Country parkrun course review – star ratings

Edenbrook Country parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 299 parkrunners on the day I visited. That’s about 90 less than the previous week, maybe something to do with school holidays or the less than perfect weather? In general, the venue hosts between mid 200s and low 300s runners every week and I think this is the sweet spot for it. Not because there are obvious segments where higher numbers would be an issue. Instead, this is because the path is pretty consistent in its width along the whole route. And it is not wide. At this attendance, it feels busy, but it is never busy enough not to be enjoyable.

Besides the general width of the path, there are no obvious bottlenecks where walking might be required if you come in a large group. However, three specific features of this course makes it even more important that people are with their pace group to avoid creating issues. First: the initial 2/300m are run in a narrow, twisty path alongside the housing development. If you are running with people who run at a similar pace, all is good. If not, overtaking or being overtaken will be hard just after the start. Second: there is a 360-degrees turnaround point – these are fun, but they can get busy. Third: there are three fairly long area of counterflow is in already narrow path. It is a lot of fun and makes for a nice visual impact, but again, it makes the path even narrower since you have to split it in the middle.

Surface-wise, it’s mostly hard path. And it is of great quality. If it is not muddy, this route can be a pretty fast one. I would go as far as saying that on a dry week, you can brave your magic shoes here, if you are into those things. I ran in road shoes and while there were a couple of puddles and a little bit of mud, it was never a problem.

Elevation-wise, at 13m elevation gain over two laps, no doubt this is a flat course. The main ‘hills’ are when you need to cross short bridges over the small rivers going through the park. If you don’t like hills, you will enjoy this venue.

In terms of course design, it is kind of weird, but it is weird in an interesting way. It works, it is fun and it makes the most of the available land and paths. Congratulations to the course designers. It starts with an ‘out’ segment that gets you into the Park proper, which will become a ‘back’ section at the end. Then you run to loop one, come back half way, start loop two and do it again. So, technically, 2 laps… but with a few twists thrown in for fun.

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

So, let’s try to write about this fun mess. While you run it, it is much less confusing than it might seem, I promise!

Once it is time to go, the human blob of parkrunniness takes a few second to start flowing, but it is actually not too bad. You start going on a good path and the beginning is quite twisty and turny. First you run by two sides of the car park, then you start running alongside the back housing development until it is time to turn right into the park. This first section is 500m long. Once you turn, you run one side of what will be the second loop. This is a long straight on the side of an open field and it helps leaving the housing development feel behind. At the end of this straight, a sharp right in a corner you will run both ways and you start your first mini-hill. This leads to a small, cute bridge that you will quickly cross and run down from.

We are now running a straight segment that act as connector between the two loops. This segment is another area where there will be counter-flow later, making the event always seem busy. A running party more than usual. Once you are through this short straight and flat section, a sharp turn left again will lead to another small bridge, without a mini hill this time. You have now entered Loop 1. Here the path becomes a bit more ‘rural’ in feel. The area is apparently called the Cow Field, even if there are no friendly ruminating quadrupeds. You cross a field, navigate a few puddles, then turn left to get through a copse of mature vegetation.

On the other side, time for another short run past a field, another little bridge and another turn into a small patch of trees. At the end of this trees you see a volunteer guarding what looks a normal turn right… but it is not! Here you turn into a flat, well tended straight section where you need to be careful and keep right? Why? Not to be taken down but the runners coming back on the left!

It is probably just 200m or so. Get to the end and turn around 360 degrees around a cone. You then reach Marshall corner again and turn right this time. Soon after this turn, you will reach the volunteer that was guarding the intersection before the little bridge that started Loop 1. Here you now turn hard right and say hi to the very fast runners getting there for their second lap or the slower ones just starting it. Run through the ‘connector segment’ again and you will reach the first ‘Marshall Roundabout’ I had mentioned. Yeah, this is a good way to describe these intersections, I guess this event should be in Milton Keynes, not in Fleet. 🙂

Once you turn right at the end of the connector segment, you have now started Loop 2. This is a more standard section, with no switchbacks or counter flows. But there is a dragon, so there is that. 🐉

Get through a small patch of trees, and then you have to pass the dragon sleep on your right. Be careful not to wake him up not to be smoked out by a groggy overgrown lizard. And hopefully, if no one shouts ‘Drakarys’ behind you for shits and giggles, you will survive this feat and reach the open fields. Here you have to run along two sides of them, costing some cute little ponds alongside the first side. Once you have finished the second side, you reach another crossing. Turn left at the end of the first lap, and you will do it all again, starting with the first segment that still had houses on your right.

At the end of the second lap, assuming the dragon behaved again, you need to go straight here and join the initial ‘out&back’ segment again. You still have 500m to go: as the guy you gave the First Timers briefing said, do not start your sprint here. It won’t work and someone will have to drag you like a bag of potatoes if you do. Or maybe call the dragon for his breakfast.

Once you start running past the car park, you have reached a more sensible point for the sprint to start. Keep going through a couple more easy turns and you will see the funnel in front of you. Give it your all and you are there. Home safe, ready for parkbreakfast!

Congratulations on completing Edenbrook Country parkrun!

Facilities at Edenbrook Country parkrun

Facilities at Edenbrook Country Park are concentrated in the Hart Leisure Centre.

The leisure centre offers toilets, a cafe, a a gym and a swimming pool. On the other end of the park there is also an area dedicated to mountain bike fun, the Edenbrook Pump Track. Looks cool.

The toilets are open and very convenient also before the event. It seems the cafe is also open early, if you have come from afar and need a quick drink before running. After the event, this cafe is also the focal point for your weekly parkbreakfast. The cafe is nice and convenient, with plenty of outside seating as well… not very scenic, but nice to have. However, in terms of selection, quality and price we are not in a good place. Better having the cafe than not, of course. But what’s on offer is fairly mediocre pre-packaged stuff and it is definitely overpriced.

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 Edenbrook Country parkrun, I ordered a single espresso, a diet Pepsi and a muffin. This cost £7.6, which is very expensive, for what it was.

Edenbrook Country 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 really enjoyed Edenbrook Country parkrun. I always find weird course designs to add something to a tourist event and while this is not the most bonkers I’ve run, it is pretty unique. There are no incredible landmarks or unique beauty spots along the route, but the design makes it a lot of fun. And it can be fast, if you are in good shape.

I don’t know if I will come back since it is not exactly around the corner from where I live, but if my niece asks me again to go to Bird World (I recommend it), then I might try to do it on a Parkrunday! This time, I came on purpose for parkrun.

Finally, obviously, thank you, Edenbrook Country parkrun team for your hospitality!