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.