This Saturday (29th of March 2014) Hannah and I went to possibly our most exotic parkrun to date. Well, it seemed exotic to me as it was the first one I have run in an unfamiliar park. Not to Hannah though as this one is right on her doorstep and takes place in a park she used to frequent in her youth.
The first thing that struck me about this one was the long climb from the car-park to where the race began. I think we were both a little worried that this was going to be part of the course because it was tiring just doing that bit! Luckily, it later transpired that it wasn't. Phew!
The course for this one turned out to be about 1.8 laps around the woods all on trail. There was a gentle incline at the beginning and a bit of a steeper hill leading up to that, which thanks to some sensible planning, you only have to run up once, as you begin the second lap. The downhill stretch leading up to the '200m to go' sign was nice and long allowing a runner to really open up some pace without any real risk of a tumble. I imagine in the winter during the rainy season this course could be quite slippy, but we were lucky enough to only have a few puddles to contend with.
I am going to post some boring stats now because, after all, I wear glasses therefore I am an annoying stats boffin! Banstead has a total ascent of 76m according to my watch (vs a descent of 90m). This compares to 89m (vs 94m) at Clair Park, 74m (vs 74m) at Lloyd Park Croydon, 63m (vs 64m) at Tilgate Park Crawley and 52m (vs 54m) at Hove. These stats sort of back up my current thoughts that Banstead belongs in the middle somewhere in terms of difficulty with Hove & Tilgate both easier and Clair (marginally) & Croydon both harder.
My time for this was 21:36 which may contradict my recommendation that this one is slightly easier than Haywards Heath, but (just like a proper British athlete) I did have a couple of excuses. Namely I felt like I was getting a bit of a cold when I woke up in the morning and secondly I was very achey indeed from the long run I did on Thursday night. I don't actually say this to excuse myself, I was happy with the time, I just say it to assert my comparison with the other events I have reviewed. Hannah got a PB though (she's told me off for not originally mentioning it!) which goes to show that it is a potential PB course.
There was a fairly decent turnout at this one of 166 and as you'd expect with a crowd that size it was fairly diverse in terms of ability and with the assistance of the medium difficulty route, there were 14 sub-20 runners which was impressive. I gathered from the marshals and runners that there was probably quite a 'close knit' vibe to this one, just like with Clair parkrun in Haywards Heath. The marshals and runners seemed to know a lot of each other's names, but a couple of people did make an effort to speak to us including one chap who talked to us all the way to the car so it did ultimately feel welcoming and I reckon anyone pitching up 2 or 3 times would quickly integrate.
On the whole this was a very nice parkrun set in some lovely scenery. The majority of my current readership are probably unlikely to want to travel so far to sample this one, but I'd be happy to attend this one again if I'm in the area.
Pictured above: Me stood by a tree!
Hannah took this for me in the car-park before the race. I look a bit miserable, but we both felt a bit silly taking a photo in the car-park so far from the start line!
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