Valentines parkrun

St. Valentines weekend had to be the perfect time for my first visit to Valentines parkrun. Turns out, I was not the only one who thought that, with Valentines parkrun ending up hosting twice their average number of runners and walkers. Oh well, it made for a nice celebration of one of many pointless commercial celebrations dotted around the year. Going forward, Valentines Day will be a meaningful day for me, because it will forever mark LonDone day!

Yes, this was the parkrun trip that finally gave me LonDone status. I have visited all 65 events in London. When I started touring, I thought I would never get there: so many, some of them so far away since I live in the SW corner of the Capital. Why would I want to spend more than 1h early on Saturday morning? Or even worse, 90 minutes on public transport with several connections? Then I caught the bug and Saturday stopped being Saturday and permanently morphed into parkrunday. The touring will continue, LonDone+ and then, I guess some of the Home Counties. With the occasionally international trip here and there. Some of them were among the highlights of 2024 for me, like Presint 18 parkrun in Malaysia or Salento parkrun and Mura di Lucca in Italy.

Then, when I was getting closer to the finish line, I had to process the fact that achieving LonDone is never going to be a final result. London event us grew from 63 to 65 when I was around 60 events. These were two great additions, the long awaited Battersea parkrun and Ingrebourne Hill, which fiew a bit more under the radar. I think a new one is expected to start in Sutton eventually? Come along, I am waiting for you! I live very close by, hopefully I can try to get my first and last inaugural there, after I missed it at Morden parkrun, which was within walking distance from home.

It has been a long journey and that was definitely part of the fun. I have 5 or 6 events I visited before I started this site and I will be going back, to have the complete LonDone here. All of them in SE London and most of them on unpaved courses. So most likely they will be slotted during spring and summer, to endure a bit less mud. It was fun and if you like visiting new places, it is the perfect excuse to discover places you would never travel to anyway.

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

Trip to Valentines parkrun and parking

Valentines parkrun takes place in, surprise surprise, Valentines park. This is in Ilford, a large town in East London part of the Redbridge Borough.

The area is fairly well connected via public transport, especially after the opening of the Elizabeth Line with a station in Ilford. If you look at the official event site, the closest station is Gants Hill, served by the Central Line. This is 0.6 miles away from the meeting point near the cafe, or about 13 minutes walk according to Google Maps. The station is on the opposite side of the park, so you will soon reach it and then have a pleasant walk across it, seeing some of the beautiful spots you will soon be running along. I think this is a good option, especially during spring and summer. The Central Line is not known for its reliability though, so check before committing to it. For many people, the new, fast, Elizabeth Line might be a more convenient option. This would lead you to Ilford Station, This is 0.8 miles away, through the high street and on the right side of the park. Walking will take just shy of 20 minutes, again if you believe in Google Maps.

From where I live (Wimbledon), a trip to Valentines parkrun by public transport would have taken me about 90 minutes, with the Central Line option recommended by Citymapper. However, as frequent readers might have understood, I am lazy, so I decided to drive. This took me about 1h, driving up the A3 to Tower Bridge and then up the North Circular. Similar to last week, when I visited Walthamstow parkrun.

The event site says there are 4 car parks serving Valentines park. You will need to pay, with the RingGo app being accepted. When I visited, it offered options for 1h, 2h or a full day stay. Cheeky. The full day charge was £5.4, so relatively honest for London standards. I had chosen the Cranbrook Road car park, which is less than 5 minutes walk from the meeting point, by the side of the boating lake. The car park is not huge. I had decided to get there as early as possible, expecting a larger attendance than usual because of the Valentines Day weekend. I got there around 8:15/8:20 and there were still plenty of parking spaces available, but it would fill up soon. I suspect on a normal weekend it might still be busy, but not busy enough to fill all car park options.

Valentines parkrun: start and briefings

The meeting point is on the larger carriageway 50 metres away from the Valentines Park Cafe, on the inner side of the boating lake. If you are coming from the same car park I had chosen, just cross the grass towards the lake and you will see people on your left. The bag drop area is just by the lake in the same location.

Once it was time for the First Timers meeting, volunteers shouted to move on the grass and the vast majority of the people complied. It was a large turnout and most people seemed to be tourists. It must have been an interesting experience for the guy delivering the briefing, surrounded in the middle of a busy circle of overexcited tourists! There was even a group from Wales coming with matching t-shirts and banners. Combined with the many people running dressed as Cupids or Queen of Hearths, the vibe for a fun event was definitely set.

The volunteer delivering the briefing did a great job keeping it informative while also fun and had an excellent loudspeaker. Shame the same loudspeaker did not seem to be used for the later briefing.

Afterwards, a short interlude happened, with another volunteer leading a group song to make sure everybody understood what to do with the tokens after the run. Pretty cool and unique, I have to say and it definitely worked well. This happened while everyone was already crowded along the main carriageway, which will also be the start pen. The song transitioned into the Main Briefing, which I could not hear at all.

Then, suddenly, the human blob started moving slowly. It was time to go.

Valentines parkrun course review – star ratings

Valentines parkrun course review – route highlights

There were 703 parkrunners on the day of my visit to Valentines parkrun. This is a lot more than their average attendance of around 300-350. Scanning through historical results, the highest attendance level I can see seems to be 441 just before St. Valentines in 2024. Will a Valentines Day pilgrimage to Valentines parkrun become ‘a thing’’? The team took the horde of parkrunners clad in red invading them in their stride and did a great job welcoming everyone and keeping things running smoothly. Even after they run out of finish tokens around position 600. Did it feel busy around the course? Definitely. Not that much at the start, but definitely at most turns and bottlenecks. Quite a few times overtaking was problematic and the only option was to run on grass to the side of the main paved path. In short, I think Valentines parkrun can easily accommodate around 500 and be a great experience. At 700, it is still enjoyable but it feels busy. Higher than that? Probably not a great experience.

On a day with normal attendance, I don’t think you will feel like there are bottlenecks around this course. The paths are usually pretty wide and, even when not, definitely not problematic. There are quite a few tight turns, but again, they offer enough space to take them widely if needed most times. There are two bridge crossings: the first one is wide, the second one is tighter and it can feel busy. Immediately after the second bridge, there is also a small gate. This is where I had to stop and walk because of congestion during the first lap.

Surface-wise, it is 100% great tarmac paths. During the First Timers briefing, the volunteer event said ‘if you end up out of a paved path, you have taken a wrong turn’. This was very welcome after wading through mud at Walthamstow parkrun last week. Since it was so busy, I had to take a few detours on grass to overtake and, even in the middle of February during a particularly grey British winter, there was no mud. Road shoes are definitely the right pick here. If you want to, you can also go for those expensive carbon plated treasures you keep in your safe for special occasions.

Elevation-wise, at 20 metres total gain over two laps, this is definitely a flat course. However, it is not totally pancake flat like Battersea or Burgess. Instead, there will be a few very mild elevations. Besides a super short ramp on the way to the second bridge, I did not really feel the gentle uphill segments. I have a vague recollection of the downhill, but no matter how much I try thinking about it, I cannot remember where it was. So I guess even that is pretty light. As it must be, considering the stats.

In terms of course layout, it is pretty simple. 1 short 150m segment that is only done at the very beginning and at the very end connecting the start/finish area to the main loop. Then the main loop: 3/4 around the main boating lake, a detour to the other small pond and then back to the bottom side of the larger lake. Twice.

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

Once it was time to go, things started wobbling along slowly. It was a bit busy for a few seconds, but not too bad. The way down the side of the lake soon gets closer to the water, where the path narrows a bit by the side of a boat house. Overtaking was very hard, with people who wanted to mostly straying off the path. By the time you have reached the boat house, you are close to the first 90 degrees turn.

Take it wide because of congestion and you will be on the short side of the lake and, officially, within the main loop. The short side of the lake is not long and goes by a nice feature building. A clock house? Kind of nice… survive the first busy lap and look at it during the second lap when the field has thinned. Soon it will be time to turn left 90 degrees again to start the way up the other long side of the lake.

However, you will not run by the water, since the path goes a few metres in-land. So you are now on a longer straight with sparse trees and well tended fields on both sides. Eventually you reach another entrance to the park with a small car park at the top of the boating lake. Here you will be met by a marshal showing you it is time for another 90-degrees left turn. You will be running the other short side of the lake here, heading towards the cafe. A slightly narrower path leads you to a bridge and, immediately after the bridge, a 90-degrees turn right in front of the cafe. After you turn, you enter a wide tree-lined carriageway.

At the end of this short scenic straight, it will be time for another 90-degrees turn left. This feeds you into one of the narrowest paths of the course. During the first lap, at times overtaking required getting onto grass again. And again, it was dry enough to barely notice you were not on the path. This segment runs with more mature vegetation on the left and open fields on the right. At the end, a gentle right turn leading to a short, steeper ramp onto a little bridge. Tiny, rather narrow, with a sharp 90-degrees left turn on the other side.

A few metres and you need to get past a little gate while you run by the other, smaller pond present in Valentines park. When you leave the pond behind you keep running straight for a short while, before a 90-degrees turn left into another grander carriageway. At the turn, you have a nice view on the rest of the park and some rock feature at the end of the pond.

Turn left again and soon reach several well maintained tennis fields. Run by their side outside the fence and turn sharp right at the end. Keep running by the sports area until you reach the end of the park and turn left again for a short downhill towards the point at the edge of the park where you had entered the main loop before.

Run it all again once and when you reach this point again, turn left instead of going straight. These are the last 150 metres, so if you want to, you can start easing into your sprint finish. The finish funnel will be waiting for you where the original meeting point was, not far from the cafe and, roughly, 2/3 of the way up the longer side of the lake.

Congratulations on completing Valentines parkrun!

Facilities at Valentines parkrun

Valentines Park turned out to be an extremely well maintained park with a lot on offer. Besides the large boating lake and another smaller pond, there are two cafes, tennis courts and plenty of other well set fitness areas. Paths are very well maintained and there are a lot of benches to sit and relax.

There are two cafes in the park. One on the corner towards Gant Hill station and one by the meeting point. I did not check the former out since the main Valentines Park Cafe is just by the meeting point and the finish funnel. It is a nice cafe with a small indoor seating area. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have any outdoor seats. They offered a good spread of cooked options, which looked very appetising. The huge turnout created a very long queue on the day of my visit, with staff trying to cope as well as they could.

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 Valentines parkrun, I ordered a Nutella muffin, a diet coke and a single espresso. This cost me £7.2. Fairly expensive, considering it was a to-go order.

Valentines 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

It seems like many people had the same idea I had and came to Valentines parkrun on Valentines. What resulted was a record attendance which was handled extremely well by the team.

Valentines park is a nice, diverse, fun park and the course is fun and never boring. If you want a pleasant, easy parkrun on tarmac in East London, I think this is easily your top pick. I would love to come back with good weather to see the park at its best. If it wasn’t on the opposite side of London for me, I definitely would. As things stand, who knows, never say never.

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