Exciting news for those of us who train around here...
Battersea Park is finally getting its own parkrun:
http://parkrun.com/about/news.aspx
No firm details yet, but should be a pb course since the park is flat and almost entirely tarmac! I wonder what the route will be??
(for those who dont know about parkrun its a free 5k every saturday morning at 9am)
Comments
This could well be the fastest parkrun of them all, Phil...flat and likely to be completely on tarmac.
I regularly do laps of the park that measure 2.08 miles, so yes about 1.5 laps or 2 smaller laps is the likely scenario.
A true time trialling course on a weekly basis anyway.
I can see this eventually becoming bigger than Bushy...
Curly - no idea, it was an early morning train journey for me from Blackheath.
...from the Sri Chinmoy website: "Car Park... costs £2 from 9am on Saturdays." Don't know if that means the main gates aren't open till 9??
The only thing I wasn't too keen on when I did the 10k was that the cambered surface was a little slippy in the wet, but otherwise it's pretty quick. On the other hand, it's the only race I've known that awards any kind of prizes down to 7th place, so I just managed to bag my first ever 'silverware'.
Oh sorry I meant arent there cars coming in and out when you are trying to run?
Agree about the camber (I train in the park a lot) it can be a bit odd when cornering
Oh wow, this is great.
Re. carparks, the last race I did in Battersea did a loop using the bandstand path as the top edge, so that only leaves you with the bottom car park to either close or dodge around.
Although what are they going to do on the Saturdays when Self Transcendence and other orgs have races planned?
Self Transcendence is earlier isnt it...8am??
Could be interesting though
Cant really see a problem - there will usually be plenty other runners in the park anyway.
The park is big enough, with wide enough paths, for two races to be going on simultaneously, as long as you remember which one you're in.
I dont see it as much different to the Blackpool Marathon and Half Marathon going on simultaneously on Sunday...some of the people are in the same race as you, some arent.
And Kingston parkrun turned up to their first or second event I think it was, only to find someone else had a race planned along the same stretch of towpath. It still worked out somehow, so cant see why it would be a problem in Battersea.
Now if they moved the Corporate Challenge event to 9am on Saturday morning that would be a different matter....
Have to say though that the Self Transcendence Marathon I ran there in 2003 involved way too many left hand turns
Marathon
(I've joked about that previously but didnt realise anyone had actually put one on in the park!!)
Likewise, marathon! I think that number of laps would drive me insane. Plus imagine the jostling to run along the ridge in the middle of the road.
You know I had another thought...Greenwich parkrun isnt in Greenwich park (its in Avery Hill Park)...
Are there other parks in Battersea that could be suitable?
I don't think so, the other green spaces around there aren't really parks. Plus it says Battersea Park on the newsletter, not Battersea, whereas Greenwich is just Greenwich.
Phil,
Greenwich is a nice testing course, being 3 laps of undulating terrain.
It almost all on grass though so it will resemble a good old English XC after any significant rain.
Nice event though and deserves some support.....
Phil you could go and volunteer - apparently they are short there
Think you're right Wobbled ... was just a random thought really.