Crystal Palace parkrun

On the first parkrunday in February I changed my plans last minute and visited Crystal Palace parkrun for the second time. Originally I planned to go to North-East London to tick off one of the last 2 remaining venues I miss to achieve LonDone. However, life sometimes comes in the way and this week the reason for changing plan is pretty prosaic. I spent half an hour ignoring my alarm clock because I was tired. Oh well, no one is chasing me, right? So, instead of going down to only 1 event to LonDone status, I visited one of the 7 locations I was missing from this site because I had been there before starting it.

Crystal Palace is a hilly parkrun in South London, at the Northern edges of the London Borough of Bromley. I often hear people mentioning it as a particularly hard venue, but last time I was here left me with a distinct memory that it was not that bad. Or that hilly. Little did I know that my fall in fitness was not going to be the only thing making it worse this time: I apparently run on an alternate route last time! This time I was welcomed with the usual, main route. And this one is very seldom flat.

Crystal Palace is also one of the usual venues for one of the Runthrough races (5K to HM) and I happened to attend one last Sunday, so the comparison is very fresh. While the RT route is 5K each lap, here we run 2 laps for 5K. Essentially, the parkrun route misses the middle section around the lake that RT goes through. No dinosaurs for parkrunners, unfortunately. But also much less mud, if we ignore the final surprise organised by the volunteer team.

I talked a lot about hills. How does this compare to other London venues? Much harder than new baby Ingrebourne Hill, which I ran last week, but easier than a Sunny Hill or a Lloyd parkrun. I would guess, similar to Hampstead Heath… but I have not checked elevations to back this up.

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

Trip to Crystal Palace parkrun and parking

Crystal Palace parkrun takes place in beautiful Crystal Palace Park, in South London. The meeting point and start are very close to the Thicket Road car park, by thee Western border of the park. Since we are in South London, if you want to come here by Tube you are not in luck.

However, there a few mainline stations within a decent distance from the park. According to the official event site, there is more than one option. Crystal Palace station is not far from the park, even if not exactly on the right side, and it is operated by Southern, with trains from London Bridge, Victoria and Croydon. Other options are Penge West station, operated by Southern and Penge East station, operated by Southeastern. According to the links above the first two stations are also part of the newly named TFL Overground ‘Windrush’ line. Not sure if they have changed operator since the event page was compiled or it is just a name. As always, when trying to get to less than obvious locations in London by public transport, the Citymapper app will come very handy. Just use the postcode I put at the top of this post and it will give you all options based on where you are. You can also add target arrival time and it will tell you when to leave.

If you want to go by car, there are several car parks within the confines of Crystal Palace park. None of them is free: you can pay via the RingGo app at all of them and I think pricing is consistently £2.4 per hour. The most convenient one for this event is the Thicket Road car park. This is not huge, so if you want to be sure to find a free spot, I would recommend not to come minutes before the start. I reached it at 8:20 and it was still nearly empty. But, while a popular event, this seems to be one of those where most people arrive at the very last minute.

If you park here, you will probably see the meeting point from your car, so you can relax a bit if it is cold and you get here early.

Crystal Palace parkrun: start and briefings

If you are coming from the Thicket Road car park, you will see the meeting point from it. Leave the car park, pass the bollards and walk the tree-lined avenue. You will immediately pass a short building on your right. This are the toilets and this is also where the event name pop-up sign was when I visited.

Volunteers and most people tend to congregate about 50 minutes further on. Once it is time, the RD called out and indicated a bench where the First Timers briefing was going to be held. Nice thing here: they have a large poster showing their main and alternate routes to help with the explanations. It was quick and efficient, with a lot of times spent welcoming genuine first timers and tourists.

Shortly afterwards everyone starts walking towards the toilet block, where people will start lining up on the wide carriageway ready to get going. The Main Briefing was short and fairly difficult to hear, but I am sure everything was covered. Strangely, some barcode bands were also being distributed, not sure what the background was. Maybe they were lost and found, maybe something else.

Then, I heard the RD shout ‘ready, set, go!. The party had begun.

Crystal Palace parkrun course review – star ratings

Crystal Palace parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 481 parkrunners on the day of my last visit to Crystal Palace parkrun. It seems like the event has been steadily growing in popularity since my last visit a while ago. And on top of that, it is also benefiting quite markedly from the NY resolution bump: all 2025 events so far have seen fields above 400, with two above 500. Looking back, it seems attendance is quite volatile, with several weeks in 2024 seeing attendance in the low 300s, but the majority passing 400. Busy, but not overwhelmingly so. In general, most paths are very wide, so it can easily sustain these attendance level and it could grow more before becoming too crowded.

There are no obvious bottlenecks around the course, it should be a very comfortable run for most people. That said, I would mention two spots worth a little bit of attention. About 750m in, you will face the only steep uphill. At its summit, there is a tight 90-degrees turn left. If you get there in a large group, it can be slightly tight, unless you are ready for it and take it widely. Since it is pretty steep, your instinct will be to get the best line to reach the top as fast as possible, I suppose, and that’s where everyone goes. The other spot is towards the end of the lap, after a long downhill. A tight turn left gets you onto another unpaved steep downhill with rocks and tree roots. It is not too bad, but worthy of attention. Falling is not impossible here.

Surface-wise, most of it is wonderful, smooth tarmac. One section is hard path that is well beaten and even, with less mud than I remembered. It was actually fairly good and dry even if there were a few large puddles to navigate. A year ago I run the RT version of a 5K in Crystal Palace and it was an absolute mud bath. The parkrun route manages to avoid most of that. I ran in road shoes and I did not regret it.

Elevation-wise, this is unquestionably a hilly event. At 74m elevation gain in total over a little less than 2 laps, you will feel the inclines if you are not used to hill running. Uphills are rarely very steep, but they are relentless and consistent. It’s essentially a long way up followed by a great, fun way down. Only exceptions to that are the steeper uphill 3/4 of the way in the climb and a short new uphill just before the end of each lap. Half way through the first lap you will add another little lop not to be repeated during the second lap. This is more of the same: a short downhill followed by a climb.

If we ignore the mini-loop you run only once half way through the lap, the course looks like a misshaped 8. There is a short 2-way flow segment which is fun, but there is always more than enough space for everyone.

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

Once it is time to go, it is time to start climbing. Because this is a course where the first half of each lap is quasi-non stop climbing and the second half brings you back down. Things start bearable, with everyone running up the tree lined path, passing the meeting point and continuing onwards for another 100m or so. It is not steep and the path is very wide, allowing a comfortable start. The only issue on the day I visited was a lake-sized puddle after a few minutes that pushed most people to the right half of the path, slowing things down slightly.

At the top of this path a 90-degrees right turn gets everyone onto a hard path roughly half as wide as the initial carriageway. Maybe less. The path was in better conditions than I expected, with just a few puddles and no mud. You keep going up on a gentle incline, with open fields on your right. A couple of gentle turns before the incline starts increasing slightly as you approach the real hill. At the end of this segment, the incline becomes steeper again for 10/15 metres and you tackle the first proper incline going up towards a large tree at the edges of a small ‘forest’.

Brave it up to the top and turn sharp right, rejoining a wide, well paved road. Here you are joining a relatively flat segment with some very short downhill bits too. It is not more than a couple 100 metres before you have to turn sharp right and go up the steepest incline of the course. This is steep, but not longer than 15/20 metres. Survive it and turn sharp left up top. Here you will again be on a short flattish segment than quickly turn into a short downhill providing a bit of well deserved respite.

As you enjoy the downhill, a wide gentle right turn under trees will lead you to open terrain where you can enjoy beautiful views on open terrain and finally see the top of the hill. Or, at least, the highest point you will reach running this course, the RT route goes higher. If you are not at the head of the field you might also see people who have already started going down, far in front of you to the right. It makes for a nice visual and pretty pictures if you are into it.

The road is wide and straight and it goes straight up the hill. Not too steep though, you have already gone through the worse! As you go up, you will soon reach a point manned by a volunteer. You have reached the top, time to rest, right? Nope, the kind volunteer points to your left, you have to turn, you cannot join the way back yet. As sadistic as this might be, you will only have to turn left here during the first lap, during the second lap you can keep going here and shortly afterwards turn right to join the way down.

But we are still on the first lap, so you turn left and start a 2/300m long slight downhill that will soon go under trees cover briefly again. But before you get too excited, remember: the turnaround was uphill, so you will need to come back up! Soon you reach a 180-degrees turnaround point and have to get back up on a grad wide carriageway. Reach the point where the volunteer was, cross the main road and join a narrower path to start your return to home half of the lap. But since you are running a course that enjoys making you suffer, as you cross the hill heading to the little forest on the other side of it you will still be doing it on a slight uphill. Fun!

However, the powers that be that designed the course with a sadistic smile on their faces need to accept the laws of physics, eventually. Unless they found a way to make this point to point, there needs to be downhills too! Once you reach the trees, it is time to turn right and start a winding and twisty downhill under trees cover. The road is wide and it has good surface, so you can let go. But be aware it will keep going for a while, so pace yourself while you are enjoying gravity’s help. At the end of this segment, you reach a volunteer where you start seeing the two-way flow section of the course. Before entering it, turn half left on a very short but very steep off-road segment. The one with stones and tree-roots I had pointed out above as a tricky spot. Fly through it and join the two-way flow area for less than 100m.

Now you have again a short downhill segment before joining a longer flat segment going alongside the fields on a wide ark towards the start. Once you reach the end of this flat segment, you pass by some metal gating by the car park and turn hard right to rejoin the carriageway where the lap started. The finish funnel is about 100m up from here, but we are still on the first lap. Get there and do it (nearly) all again, except the short detour at the top of the hill.

When you get back here, enjoy the last short uphill sprint to the funnel and you will be done. Funnily enough, on the day I visited the team left a final surprise after scanning. They found a lonely bench and table in the middle of the muddiest section of the park and put the baskets to collect finish tokens on that table. So after mostly avoiding mud throughout the run, we all had to wade through quicksands to reach leave the tokens. Fun! 🙂

Congratulations on completing Crystal Palace parkrun!

Facilities at Crystal Palace parkrun

Crystal Palace is a large and busy park. It offers plenty of facilities, with several cafes, food trucks, a nice lake, Victoria dinosaurs and even a full blown athletics stadium. I am sure there is a lot I have not listed, but you can definitely spend a whole morning if not more around here, especially with good weather. On Sundays they have a nice food market around the area where parkrun starts.

Toilets are very close to the start and they are clean and open before and after the event.

As far as parkbreakfast, as the beautiful Crystal Palace cafe is slightly uphill just in front of the toilets block. It is a charming building with a large outdoor seating area and a good spread available.

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 Crystal Palace parkrun, I ordered a cherry and almond slice, a red orange soda e and a single espresso. This cost me £11.12. Obscene price, honestly.

Crystal Palace 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

Crystal Palace is a great event. It is challenging, but not challenging enough to turn it into a gruesome, painful experience like some other hiller ones in the South East. It is set in a great park with a lot to offer and with great facilities. And it is busy enough to generate a special party vibe. It is definitely worth visiting and more than once.

I have been here before and I am sure I will come again, hopefully on a spring or summer day to enjoy the park at its best.

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