Bicester parkrun

This weekend I had my overdue semi-annual shopping trip, so I took the chance and visited Bicester parkrun for the first time. Yes, Bicester Village is my recurring source of overdue upgrades and changes in clothing: I hate shopping and the possibility to go through it all at once is unmissable. As much as the process of going through it is draining and my interest during is fairly low. Last time I started my new tradition of parkrun tourism before the shopping ordeal visiting University Parks parkrun, so this time I had to go to the namesake itself!

This trip comes after a parkrunday when the impossible happened: I missed an event! I know, it’s incredible and I need to be ashamed of myself. And I am: I do I dare being sick on parkrunday??? I will need to find a way to atone, in the meanwhile I will think about it during my daily meditations. Can’t happen again, obviously.

Another notable trivia for this parkrunday: Battersea parkrun started, bringing the number of parkrun venues to 64. One more to tick off on my long journey to LonDone: 5 to go again! The sad thing is that I found out about it on Friday night and I would have gone to get my first and last inaugural, had I not desperately needed new suits. It’s kind of local to me, after all. Oh well, another time… looking at my Wilson Index I guess I will try to visit for event 5 or 6.

Back to the event of the week, I am serious when I say that parkrun is a great start for a day (or hopefully half) trip to Bicester Village. On the day, the event was using their winter course for the second week, and this is all on tarmac, so little danger of mud. Not showering after the event is mildly disgusting, but it is just a 5K after all and a some emergency cleaning can be done at the village large toilets. Also, arriving mid morning saves you from the midday/afternoon hordes, making the whole experience slightly less atrocious.

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

Trip to Bicester parkrun and parking

Bicester parkrun takes place at Langford Fields, in Bicester. Incidentally, the Fields are pretty close to the outlet village I mentioned above, so the venue benefits from the excellent transport links it has generated.

The closest train station is Bicester Village, serving the outlet centre. According to the official event site, this was the former Bicester Town station, so I suppose it had an important role even before the outlet popped out. The station is managed by Chiltern Railways, with services from Oxford and London Marylebone. If you are coming from the big smoke like me, there are trains getting there early enough to join the event.

Once you get to the station, it is a 12 minutes walk from the venue according to Google maps.

If you are as lazy as me, you will probably drive. It is an easy drive using major motorways all the way to Oxford and then high capacity local roads to Bicester. Again because of the magic touch a large commercial destination can work on local infrastructure. Imagine if infrastructure were generally decent, maybe viable commercial enterprises would pop up in a vaste variety of places!

A local school has made their car park available for parkrun visitors on Parkrunday mornings. It is pretty small, but cars are allowed to park packed up to each other. This is because by 10.15am everyone is expected to be gone and the car park will be closed. Don’t forget and don’t go for coffee before moving the car!

Bicester parkrun: start and briefings

If you use the school car park, there will most likely be a volunteer at the gate to help with any questions. But you are unlikely to need any help. Looking for a toilet? 10+ minutes walk away, so hopefully you are early enough. Directions? Just cross the road and follow the path for a couple of minutes.

At the end of the path, you will see plenty of people arriving from all directions. Just turn left and you are metres away from the meeting point. Most people will be gathering in a clearing by a little bridge.

The First Timers Briefing took place by the bridge. On the day I visited the RD was kind enough to give the First Timers Briefing and go through the fairly easy route with the small group of tourists that had joined the many local runners.

A few minutes later, everyone moved to the path and the RD positioned herself on the grass, with good visibility for all runners. The briefing was quick and efficient, then everyone started walking about 100m East towards the start line. As warned during the briefing, the countdown came very fast once the group had reached the start sign. Actually, since runners all lined up along a fairly narrow path, I didn’t event realise the front of the queue had reached the start. Regardless, have your watches ready or your risk missing the run and your 5k not going on Strava. And everybody knows it, if your run doesn’t go on Strava, it hasn’t happened. Scholars are still debating if it appearing on the 5K app invalidates the Strava clause.

Time to go!

Bicester parkrun course review – star ratings

Bicester parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 236 parkrunners on the day I visited. This seems to be roughly in line with the usual field size for Bicester parkrun. While there was a small contingent of tourists, it was not overwhelmingly large, hence I got the nice impression that the event is well established with a substantial group of recurring local runners. In general, it doesn’t seem to me that attendance here is subject to large seasonal swings, even if the course changes between summer and winter. I see it in a relatively tight 230-300 range, with some outliers. A massive outlier was reached in July 2024, with more than 700 runners and walkers joining the event: pretty sure that must have been a very very busy day. Probably too busy, but I haven’t experienced the summer course, so I cannot comment on that.

The whole course is on paths, with a section on pavements. This is great during winter, but it also constrains the surface people can run on or overtake. At mid 200 attendance levels, the start feels pretty busy, but not as crazy as some other events can be. You will have to run in a tight field for a while, but it runnable enough and you can also overtake rather easily. Surprisingly, the field will open up after the main bottleneck: the bridge.

Once you reach the bridge, there is no way to keep running unless you are at the very front. When I visited, everyone stopped and started walking for 20/30 seconds: then when on the bridge, running was possible again. Beyond this spot, there is a tight turn when joining the pavement and 2 360-degrees turnaround point that you have to pass twice, so you will lose a little bit of time. Finally, some barriers will need to be navigated when leaving the pavement sections, again slightly slowing you down a bit. In summary: a quirky course, but not one with major issues to be concerned of. With the exception of the bridge on lap 1, maybe.

Surface-wise, I think with the exception of a short diversion on grass at the end, it is all on paved paths. There are some section of paths that are a bit broken down and mixed in with stones and roots when running under the woods, but again, all in all it is pretty decent. During the briefings, they mentioned some potentially slippery sections due to leaves, but I did not think there was an issue when I visited. However, my local is Wimbledon Common which turns into quicksands in winter, so I might be biased. See the 10K race I did there for a better example of what my local could look like. On this visit, I was wearing road shoes and they were totally fine.

Elevation-wise, this is a really flat course. At no point I felt there was any meaningful gradient, either uphill or downhill. This is also confirmed by the Strava elevation plot below, showing a 5m elevation gain over 5K. It can be a fast course, if not an absolute PB one because of the turnaround points. As an aside, interesting to see the introduction of the Athlete Intelligence feature for Strava subscribers below. It makes the screenshot less visually appealing, I think, but it might lead to interesting information over time. Let’s see how it develops. It is only available to Strava subscribers for now and definitely not a reason to start paying in its own. I will report over time, maybe.

In terms of course design, this is a 2-lap course made up of 2 out and back sections hailing from a central start/finish point. You first go West, where a small loop breaks the out and back and then go East, on a perfect out and back. Plenty of counterflow sections, which I always enjoy. Simple, once you are running it, no risk of getting lost.

A quick Relive route plot is on my YouTube Channel, with longer video highlights embedded below. It seems short, but I missed a couple 100 metres at the beginning, so my fault about that, sorry.

The volunteers warned us, and they were right. Once you start walking towards the start, get your watch ready because things will get going quickly and rather suddenly. This is because runners all lined up along a relatively narrow path, so you will still be walking when the front has reached their target destination. I think starting before everyone bunches up like sardines is actually a good idea: it helps minimising congestion. That said, if you are shooting for a PB, be aware of it and position yourself towards the front.

Once things start, it does feel pretty busy, but not overwhelmingly so. There are many worse events, even if I still have to find out able to compete with Fulham Palace parkrun. As you start running, you follow a flat, paved path for a couple 100 metres, mostly with trees on your left and lawns on your right. After crossing through one small tree covered area, you exit in the open again for a little while before approaching the famous bridge.

This bridge is short and narrow, but it is at a 90 degree left turn from the path and it comes fairly early on. So people will have to stop and walk to get on the tree, 1 or 2 abreast at most. Once you are on the bridge itself you can start running again and after less than 10 metres you are on the other side and again in the open, with trees on your left and meadows on your right now. The bridge is also the entry into the only non-out&back loop of this course. If you look at the map above, you are now starting the little lop in the NE section.

Now you start a pleasant moderately turns segment crossing the fields and passing a children play area, then you turn into the woods for a more twisty, fun short segment that also benefits from a small lake to its side. At the end of this short segment, it is time for another sharp right turn that will lead onto a section on pavement outside the park. Here you will have to run a longer straight that ends into a 360-degrees turnaround point, so more fun counterflow. After you turn back, run half of the straight segment again in the opposite direction before turning sharp left to re-enter the park. This is where you will have to navigate around or between a couple of barriers.

When you are back inside the park, a short scenting curvy path segment will bring you back to the bridge, already on same side you entered it from before. Keep going straight towards the start to complete the first o&b segment of this course. When you reach the start, beat the temptation to run towards the finish funnel and keep going, running on the left side of a large field. At the end of the path, follow the right turn and then a left turn to enter the woods again. It is now time for another shorter straight segment leading to a 360-degrees turnaround point around a cone. Do it all again in the opposite direction and you will reach finish funnel first and then start line again. One lap is done, time to do it all again.

On the way back, the finish funnel is even more tempting, but keep going and do the shorter out and back one last time. When, finally, you are back by the finish funnel for the fourth time, you are allowed to turn left on the grass and accept glory and cheers while you get into it.

Congratulations on completing Bicester parkrun!

Facilities at Bicester parkrun

There are no facilities at Bicester parkrun. The park is actually quite nice and it offers several children play areas and interesting exercise drawings on the path, but this is pretty much it.

No toilets are to be found within the park, nor anywhere nearby. The closest public toilets are at Claremont car park, supposedly 12 minutes walk from the meeting point.

The are also no cafes within the park. The official course page suggests a few local options within the area. Since I was on my way to Bicester Village, I decided to go straight there for breakfast. And since the outlet is the stereotype for a collection of corporate brands and chains, I didn’t end up in an independent cafe. Pret is pretty dependable as chains go, so that was the unusual location for my parkbreakfast.

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 Bicester parkrun, I had a lemonade, a chocolate swirl and a single espresso. The additional bacon thingy was for Miss IngoRuns, so I will not count it. This cost about £9, don’t remember exactly. Sure, overpriced, but good quality. What could you expect from a Pret at Bicester Village, after all.

Bicester 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.

• Instagram
• Twitter
• YouTube

---

Achievements and performance

Conclusions

As mentioned before, Bicester parkrun was not a bucket list event or one I decided to visit on purpose: it happened to be close to where I was supposed to go anyway. That said, I still left home way earlier than I usually would and I am glad I did. It is a nice event with a pleasant, unusual layout and great surface for the beginning of the winter months.

There are so many events to visit that me coming back here if fairly unlikely, but never say never. If you are in the area, consider Bicester parkrun as a great option, not only the most famous ones in Oxford. It is fun.

Finally, obviously, thank you, Bicester parkrun team for your hospitality!