Gladstone parkrun

For my first parkrunday of 2025 I visited Gladstone parkrun for the second time. Yes, my first. I missed 5 parkrun days over the holiday period, since visiting Victoria Dock and adding the Cowell Club and Alphabeteer to my parkrun achievements! I was lazy on Christmas Day, which is kind of acceptable. Then a flight cancellation stopped me from attending the last event of 2024 and a long awaited exotic holiday brought me to parkrunless wastelands for the first 3 events in January 2025. Seeing the amount of cancellations that plagued the UK on those days, I think I did not miss too much though.

Gladstone parkrun was one of the events I had already visited, but only before I started this site and the related YouTube channel. I had briefly toyed with the idea of visiting a new event out of London, but morning commitments imposed on me by boss lady forced me to look for a closer event and this one worked great. At this point, I have 3 events left to grab the coveted LonDone status and a few remaining venues in SE London I will have to visit again to complete London on this site.

I had visited Gladstone parkrun last in September 2022, a long time ago. What will eventually going to cause my current running rut was just starting and I remembered it as a pleasant venue with some mild hills. It will take me 10 minutes longer this time and the hills will feel much more painful! But even in such a grey January day, the park still looked good and the route fun, if fairly sadistic in its design. Will 2025 see me slowly getting back into shape? I hope so!

As several other events in North/North West London, this is a very undulating one. But still manageable all things considered, definitely not as hard as nearby Sunny Hill parkrun. If in the area looking for something flatter, head to Canons parkrun or Gunnersbury parkrun and if you want mud, mud and more mud try Wormwood Scrubs!

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

Trip to Gladstone parkrun and parking

Gladstone parkrun takes place, unsurprisingly, in Gladstone Park, Brent, North West London. This mid sized green space encompasses sprawling hills around the Dollis Hill estate, with a good amount of sport areas and landscaped corners. A meaningful tree restoration and planting effort seems to be undergoing on the slope of one of the hills you run up and around.

According to the official event site, buses seem to be the focus of travel recommendations. I won’t get into bus recommendations since they depend so much on where you are coming from. As recommended before, Citymapper is a very handy app you can use to design your optimal public transport route in many European cities. The closest underground station is Dollis Hill, served by the Jubilee Line. From there, google maps says it is a 10 minutes walk to the parkrun meeting point.

I am lazy, so I drove from Wimbledon in around 40 minutes. Had I opted for public transport, it would have taken me around 80 minutes with 3 line changes. So feasible as well for London standards.

If you are driving, use the postcode above and head for Kendal Road, which runs along the South side of the park. On street parking here is free on weekends and there seems to be plenty of spaces available early in the morning.

Gladstone parkrun: start and briefings

The meeting point is in front of the Pavilion Cafe, by a table tennis and children playground area. If you have parked on Kendal Road or if you are coming from Dollis Hill station, you will likely enter the park just West of this location. Turn right and you will see a squat building and people in front of you, on the South-East corner of the park.

The Pavilion is closed before the event starts. Not sure if there is a toilet there after the event, but according to the event site a toilet is available 10 minutes walk away. If you are coming by tube, I guess your best option is looking for a cafe near the tube, but I have not checked what’s there.

A bit later than usual, first timers and tourists were called for the First Timers briefing. A volunteer then herds the few visitors to the side and starts with welcome. On the day I visited, he said he would not try to describe the course besides saying it is a two lapper. And I think that’s the sensible decision: it is probably pretty difficult to describe and there are volunteers at every turn, so you won’t get lost here.

Since we were running a bit late on the timetable, immediately afterwards the Main Briefing started. It is not a busy event, so the RD climbing on top of the table tennis table ensure everyone could hear him and see him. A quick briefing focused on milestones and it was time to go. People turn 180 degrees and walk about 100 metres towards a path that crosses the field heading North towards the hills. The start line is close to the intersection with that path, a few metres North to allow people to bunch up on it without too many stuck before the bent.

And then, suddenly, a quick countdown started. It was time to go!

Gladstone parkrun course review – star ratings

Gladstone parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 307 parkrunners on the day of my first visit to Gladstone parkrun. As the first event of 2025 not disrupted by snow or ice, I am sure there was an impact from delayed new year resolutions. Hopefully new joiners enjoyed it and will come back for more, here or elsewhere. That said, 300ish was not far from the average field you can experience here. Looking at historical attendance levels, it seems to be in a fairly volatile 200-300 range, with most of the events around the middle of that range. Paths are generally well maintained and fairly wide, so there are very few areas where these numbers represent a problem. On the contrary, this course could easily sustain a substantial increase in attendance without becoming overly crowded. Come check it out, it is definitely worth a visit!

I would not think any of the tighter spots along this course can be called bottlenecks. For completeness though, there are a couple of areas where if you are in the middle of the pack you might to slow down just a little bit. The first one comes a couple of 100m in, when you have to cross a bridge. Not because it is narrow, but because you are asked to keep to the left of the path, with cones and marshals to enforce it. I remember on my first visit it was stressed by the RD, so it could be one of the conditions posed by the landowner and, frankly, it makes sense. This allows other park users to come in the opposite direction without having to wait for the whole herd of parkrunners to cross the bridge. Besides this, there were two points where I got a bit stuck in traffic. The first was at the top of the first hill, where a tight left turn is also waiting for you. The second was at the bottom of the first long downhill, again with a tight left turn at the same time. That said, no worries whatsoever, it is not a course where you have to negotiate bollards or gates.

Surface-wise, it is all tarmac until the very end. At the end, the last 50 metres heading into the finish funnel are on grass. The tarmac sections are decent, if not carbon plated shoes good. It was not muddy or wet in January, so that’s good enough for me: what your step here and there for some bumps, but nothing meaningful. At the end, grass in January was bound to be a bit slippery and muddy, but again, it was not terrible. Your sprint finish might suffer a bit, but you will not be eaten by quicksands.

Elevation-wise, this is definitely undulating. 79m elevation gain over 2 laps put things a bit more in perspective though. I suffered these hills on my last visit, but I don’t remember them being so painful when I was here last. There isn’t any long steep climb, or even short steep climb, but it is a consistent up and down. The RD warned us: 6 hills between the start and the finish funnel, so be ready for it!

In terms of course design, if I try summarising it, it will sound more complicated than it really is. Oversimplifying it, there is a short section up to a bridge that leads you to the main loop. From here, run a figure 8 twice and after the second time, take the bridge again to go back to the finish funnel. Funny thing: the centre of the 8 is on top of the central hill, to maximise your climbing fun.

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

After the briefing, everybody walks to the start line. If you want to be in front, jog there because it is not far and the group will bunch up close to each other. That said, the path is reasonably wide, so it will not feel congested. Once it was time, everyone got going and it is probably less than 100m straight before you have to turn left and start heading up the bridge ramp. Quick bridge crossing with no time to watch around and it’s time for a slight left turn while going downhill towards an intersection with a couple of volunteers. At the intersection, turn sharp right and you have entered the main loop.

You are now on a slightly uphill tree-lined path that will briefly level out. However, it only levels out to let you breath for a few seconds before a left turn leading straight into what is probably the steepest uphill of this course. It is not long and it is not impossibly steep, so if you are in good shape you can easily run it uphill. At the top, harsh left turn and you enter a wider tree lined path running at the top of the central hill. This path starts level, then it starts going downhill and turn right slightly leading towards the centre of the 8. Before the centre you pass by a small children playing area, then meet the volunteers and take the path on the left.

Since you can never have enough of a good thing, the path is level for a short bit again then you start climbing once again. You thought it was at the top of the hill, you did not know you were at the top of A hill… one of several here. Keep going straight and you will reach another summit that will transition quickly into the steepest and most enjoyable downhill of this course. At the bottom of this downhill another sharp turn left onto what is a longish segment that looks fairly flat and straight. It is neither, but elevation change is not noticeable, while a slight left curve is.

At the end, another sharp left turn and you start running along the South side of the park. This is actually fairly flat and moderately scenic, with the slops of the hill on your left. And a cool iron railroad overpass soon appearing on your right. More or less half way through the South side of the park, you come across two volunteer. You thought you would keep going straight to the point where you started the loop, right? Wrong… why go straight on a level path when you can turn left and climb the first hill again? Right… Climb up and you will reach the centre of the 8 again, with the nice visual offered by runners meeting while going in different directions.

At the centre of the 8, turn sharp right and go down a tree lined wide downhill path for 150/200m to reach the point where you had entered the main loop. The first time you reach this point, turn left and run the loop once more. The second time, go straight and climb up to cross the bridge in the opposite direction. Keep going once down until where you started and then when you meet a couple of marshals again, turn sharp left into the grass. The finish funnel will be 50 metres away in front of you, across the field.

Congratulations on completing Gladstone parkrun!

Facilities at Gladstone parkrun

The park has got a lot of well maintained sports facilities and decent paths, but it is fairly basic in terms of other facilities. As I wrote above, the event page mentions a toilet, but I have not gone looking for it. Not sure if there are public facilities in the park or if the 10 minutes walk mentioned refer to finding a cafe.

Post run, the team recommends going to a cafe about 10 minutes walk away from the finish funnel. This might be a bit surprising, because the Pavilion Cafe is open by the time you get to the finish. However, once I went to buy some well deserved refreshments, I think I found out why. Drinks are available, but very little in terms of food: crisps or Border biscuits. Well, better than nothing I guess, since I was in a rush and had no time to walk to the recommended cafe and back to my car.

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 Gladstone parkrun, I ordered a Diet Coke and 2 Border biscuits. This cost me £2.8. Cheap in absolute terms, but definitely not cheap if I stop a second thinking what it was for.

Gladstone 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

Regardless of my horrible shape and the grey winter weather, I enjoyed Gladstone parkrun. The park is interesting, the team is very welcoming and motivating and course design is sadistic but enjoyable.

I am pretty sure I will be back here again, probably in spring or late summer to enjoy better views from the top of the hill and the whole park with better lights.

Finally, obviously, thank you, Gladstone parkrun team for your hospitality, once again!