Southampton parkrun (59)

· by · in South East England, United Kingdom. ·

This morning I registered my first UK parkrun in more than two and a half years, and despite having a new course less than 5 minutes from my house that I could have run, I found myself about as far down the country as is possible! I was visiting family down on the Isle of Wight and having already done Medina IOW parkrun last time I was down this way I had to get creative with my trip and a potential venue. If I were to change my trip so that I came back on a Saturday rather than going down on a Saturday that would mean that I could get one of the first ferries back to the mainland and run at Southampton parkrun instead. So that’s what I did.

The journey to the start line was as fraught and as uncertain as I think I have had so far, with me thinking on more than one occasion that I was not going to get there in time (with no backup plan available). Heavy fog had meant that there were problems with the ferry coming into the dock and the same fog also threatened the crossing time as we had to travel much slower than normal. Had everything been on time there was not too much time to play with in the first place but every minute lost was making it seem less and less likely that I was going to run. Thankfully, the parkrun Gods must have been looking down on me and willing me on as I was one of the first cars off the ferry, there was a clean run through with no traffic and there was a free parking space not far from the park which all in all meant that I managed to get to the start line just before they started their run briefing!

Today was also the first time that I had the pleasure to actually run with a fellow Hoffman Club member as Nigel Harding came to meet me to settle a score that he had with Southampton parkrun since his last visit in August 2016 (I did previously meet another Hoffman Club member when I met Glenn Barden while he was holidaying in Sydney but I was volunteering that day). The fact that I mention that Nigel had previously ran Southampton parkrun may come as a surprise as some of you will know from other posts on this blog that being a member of the Hoffman Club means that you only ever run an event once, however Nigel was unable to complete the full parkrun on his first attempt so he did not collect a Finish Token to register a result on his profile. So don’t worry, he won’t have to hand back in his membership card. Thankfully it’s a rule that benefited me in the early days too, otherwise I wouldn’t have even got to 2 unique events in 2 runs! It was great to meet Nigel at last as he was one of the first people to get in touch with me when I started writing this blog and has been the glue that keeps the rest of us in contact with everyone’s antics with a weekly roundup. Thanks Nigel, hope to meet again at some point!

COURSE DETAILS:

Southampton parkrun (59)

From what I was told by Nigel, the course I ran this morning is not their normal course, so I can only describe the course as I ran it.

The course is a two-lapped course with an extra start and finish straight off the South-West corner of the lapped section. At the start you group together slightly further down the path towards the cafe from the Finish line and upon starting you head towards and past the Finish. You continue on the path (named ‘The Flats’) until you reach the start of the lapped section of the course when you meet the next path called ‘Carriage Drive North’.

You are then faced with a long hill which increases from approx 30m elevation to approx 60m elevation over the course of 1km that saps energy out of your legs before turning right at a T-junction to now follow another path called ‘Coronation Avenue North’. From here it is all downhill back towards the corner where you first join the lapped section with another right turn after approx 500m, this time onto an unnamed path that is at a right-angle to the path you leave. Reaching the end of this last path after approx 500m and reaching the bottom of the hill for a second time you repeat the lap one more time.

On the second time of completing the lapped section of the course, you take a left turn to head back towards the Start/Finish line. When you reach the finish line they have a double-laned funnel which they give out Finish Tokens at the end of each lane. I have to admit I could not see how they were going to ensure that the right person got the right token as it was not a case of one either side (with the two token distributors having alternating tokens), but I got a time at the end that matched pretty close to my watch time, so they must have got a system that works somehow!

RUN DETAILS:

  • Time: 27:22
  • Place: 332/577
  • Gender Place: 262
  • Age Category Place (SM30-34): 31
  • Age Graded Score: 47.26%
  • Most Events Global Position: 366

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