Tilgate (Crawley) - Part 2

http://www.parkrun.org.uk/tilgate/

Saturday the 19th Hannah and I had another pop at Tilgate parkrun. Both of us had only run this one once before, Hannah when she first started out and me running around with her getting told I was annoying her! So with that in mind we knew we shouldn’t struggle to get a course PB. As mentioned before, I had in my head that this course could be easier than Hove so I wanted to put that theory to the test.

Given that the nasty incline that I could remember was something I’d only have to run up once, I thought that’d be less draining than running up the side of Hove Park 2.75 times (approximately!). What I hadn’t allowed for was that prior to the concrete hill some have nicknamed ‘The Travelator”, there was actually another brief incline which sort of sapped my energy before I even got to the part I was prepared for. On that basis (see previous blog entry) I realised that actually this course is a little harder than Hove.

On the start line the starter announced "welcome to Burgess Hill Runners who are making a bit of an event of this". I'm not sure what he'd got wind of, but actually there did turn out to be quite a few of us there and it was nice to bump into a few familiar faces at the end. 

I started a little way back on this one and found it difficult to fight my way towards the front after it started. This didn’t impact my time, because it gave me a bit of spare energy for the remaining 4.5km, but as the first parkrun i’ve run with a starting funnel, it was a little tricky at first. As previously mentioned you begin with a lap round the pretty lake over a bit of a gravel path….i’m not sure what the correct shoes are for gravel but I’d bet my bottom dollar someone somewhere does have special ‘gravel shoes’ for sale. This takes in a very gradual incline which you’d barely notice if you walked, but it does bring your heart rate up a tiny bit while you’re running and it shouldn’t be taken for granted. After the trip round the lake you go off for a big lap around the woods and greenery (this is where that little bugger of an incline stitches you up) before eventually mounting a bit of a climb up the aforementioned concrete slope. After that it’s mostly flat or downhill but the one extra lap around the lake means another little go over the ever so slightly inclining gravel path. As you come back round to the finish your path intersects with the tail runners who are embarking on their final lap of the lake and whilst marshals did shout “keep left” to them, I think only one of the 10 or so runners I was ‘lapping’ actually knew what ‘left’ meant so my little tip for this race is to put your sprint finish in before you actually get to the last 200m because you can’t rely on these runners to move for you. I’d never get cross with people who are out doing their best in something like this, I just sort of weaved in and out without saying anything!

I clocked a time of 21:02 against a target of sub-21. If anything I felt slightly fitter than I did for Nonsuch the week before so the 38 second difference was largely down to the course in my opinion. 

So, in summary, I was wrong about this one being easier than Hove and if you look at my previous blog entry, I even rank it as slightly harder than Banstead Woods. However, what I was right about was it is a beautiful place to do a 5k run so if you like a bit of scenery, this one and Banstead Woods are definitely the ones to go to….they just might not get you a 5k PB.

The Stats - 19th April 2014

This is the first of many updates I'll do on some of the stats from the races I've tried. This includes a bit of ranking them in order of difficulty along with a lot of other uninteresting info! I'll update this when I have done 2 or 3 more different ones, but here is my list for the first 6.

It's worth noting that it is all my personal opinion and based on the fact I am pretty poor at running up a hill! I love bombing down one though, but if you are better at hills than me you might not rank them in this order.

So, in order of difficulty, the easiest (in my opinion) first:

1) Nonsuch Park Course B, Cheam - total ascent: 33m - PB: 20.24

2) Hove Park - total ascent: 52m - PB: 19.57 - compensation vs Cheam: +1%

3) Banstead Woods - total ascent: 76m - PB: 21.36 - compensation vs Cheam: + 2.5%

4) Tilgate Park, Crawley - total ascent: 63m - PB: 21.02 - compensation vs Cheam: + 3.5%

5) Clair Park, Haywards Heath - total ascent: 89m - PB: 21.09 - compensation vs Cheam: + 5%

6) Lloyd Park, Croydon - total ascent: 63m - PB: 21.22 - compensation vs Cheam: +6.5%

The compensation vs Cheam (the one I deem easiest) is based on all conditions being the same. Obviously my PBs don't back up these figures, but this is because they were all run at different times and in different states of mind! I reckon that for each of these runs, if you ran them at your peak fitness with no illnesses in the same weather conditions etc, the figures I have added in red will be a fairly accurate indicator of how much additional time you can expect to add to your 5k for each of the ones on the list. Make sense? I thought not! But I enjoyed typing it!

Nonsuch Park (Cheam) - Course B

http://www.parkrun.org.uk/nonsuch/

On Saturday the 12th, Hannah and I took a little visit to Nonsuch Park (turns out there is such park) in Cheam. This one was a little more familiar to us as we’d both run 10k races there, albeit not on the bit of the park that the parkrun took place on.

This parkrun was probably the biggest I’d run in (no, I don’t mean we had to run 6km). I believe there were 466 entrants at this one and you could tell. I’d had a little look at some of their past results before we went and seen that they often had 20-30 runners clocking sub-20 so I knew there’d be some fast runners out for this one. For that reason I stood a bit back from the fast folk when we lined up at the start!

It was a nice flat Parkrun this time, largely on paths with a small stretch across the grass which was nice and dry. The guy starting the race announced it was ‘course B’ which presumably is their Winter course as he also stated there’d only be two more before they reverted to ‘course A’ (another one we’ll have to sample, cheeky!). He also proclaimed that this was the one to get a PB on so we were running the easier option. I have to admit, it felt pretty easy too. Although my final time was 20:24 (27 seconds slower than my time at Hove a week before) it was most certainly an easier Parkrun due to the lack of incline and therefore moves into my 1st place in terms of PB potential. I was in my off-road shoes anticipating the ground to be a bit muddier in the grassy portion. It didn’t really slow me down, but in hindsight there was no need to wear them, road would’ve been more suitable. I found that I was running at quite a fast pace for a lot of the route without feeling like I was exerting myself, so a sub-20 time would definitely be achievable on course B. 

The scenery was quite nice too. Nonsuch Park is a massive park that could probably accommodate a one lap parkrun, but due to their selection of route, this one was three laps. But, three laps round a nice pretty park quite free of other park users and dog walkers. 

The square nature of the laps meant that they didn’t need a huge number of staff around the course, but the large number of entrants meant that they had a lot of scanners and admin people at the finish. The only minor criticism of this one was that when Hannah finished, in quite a large group, she had to queue to cross the finish line which added a few seconds to the time (they didn’t appear to click the watch until she was literally over the line). For a race with so many people they really need a wider finish line which funnels down afterwards if they are concerned about managing the order of finishers. 

I can see myself wanting to do this one a couple more times. Once to sample their Summer route and again to have a stab at a sub-20 Winter route.