Ruchill parkrun (73)

· by · in Scotland, United Kingdom. ·

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PARKRUNDAY!!

Thanks to a rare weekend work trip north of the border, I today found myself running on International parkrun Day for only the second time in my 5 1/2 year parkrun career. This year is the 14th anniversary of when 13 people met up to run the very first parkrun in Bushy Park. Since then it has ballooned to over 1,600 locations in over 20 countries with over 270,000 people taking part each week. At this rate of growth, it’s going to take me quite some time to run all of the different events!

Running the course at Ruchill parkrun is a little bit like running inside an MC Escher painting, they somehow manage to make it so the entire course is uphill! Okay, so that is not entirely true, but it is certainly how it felt this morning. After two consecutive nights of pushing myself in some particularly gruelling spinning classes to try to get my fitness back, it seems like there was little to no energy or fight left in my legs to mount a serious attack on a hilly course such as this, so it felt like I was running through treacle for the majority of the run and even had to resort to walking on more than one occasion. To say that my recent kick-starting of my fitness is due to my target of attempting to break my parkrun PB in March 2019, I’m not off to a great start! Definitely need more time in the gym and out on the roads I think.

I have previously said that every event I go to gives me something new, something that a particular event team do well compared to others or something that they do that I have not seen before, and today was no exception. Today was the first time that I have seen the event team use mobile phones to do all of the volunteer jobs. Although I was a little taken aback by it at first, it does make sense. They were using devices that were already connected to a network, have a camera with scanning abilities and a stopwatch built-in. Not only that, but everyone has one too so it is easy to source spares should something not work as expected. I don’t know if they need special software to be able to do anything but at a guess they are just apps that can be downloaded to a device. Will definitely add that to the list of ideas should I ever decide to start or run my own event somewhere!

COURSE DETAILS:

Ruchill parkrun (73)

Before the start of the run, the Run Director said in the first-timers briefing that the course is far more difficult to explain than it is to actually run, which turned out to be very true. However, as he so valiantly pressed ahead to try to explain it, so will I.

The course is composed of 2.5 laps of which the first two are identical and the additional 0.5 of a lap is identical to the first section of the first two laps. The run starts by a bench on the main path just to the right as you enter Ruchill park via the Murano Street gate and there are parkrun flags by the gate so you cannot miss it.

From the start you follow the main wide path away from the entrance and start the long sweeping uphill until reaching a children’s play area at the top of the hill after approximately 600m. After reaching the top of the hill, you then follow the path towards the right to a quick steep downhill section before turning right again at the bottom to follow a narrower path alongside the gate at the edge of the park. Following this thinner path (with again a sweeping uphill) for approximately 500m you reach a T-junction with the main path and this time you take a left turn to run in the opposite direction as you did from the start. After an additional 100m you reach the start line and continue running in the opposite direction before doing a loop around a large triangular section of grass and heading back again towards the start. Upon reaching the start line for 3rd time you have completed the first lap and repeat exactly the same for the next lap.

After completing two full laps of the course, you follow the same first part with the uphill section towards the play area, then the downhill section but this time when you enter the main path again you head towards the location of the start line and do not do the extra section with the loop around the triangular grass area. As the last 100m is flat/slightly downhill and straight, it makes for a perfect sprint finish!

RUN DETAILS:

  • Time: 28:35
  • Place: 61/85
  • Gender Place: 41
  • Age Category Place (SM30-34): 7
  • Age Graded Score: 48.51%
  • Most Events Global Position: XXX

LINKS:

Leave a comment