Another inaugural, assault course envy, the odd couple and no food van
The inaugural Rushmoor parkrun popped up on the calendar this week so I absently checked where exactly Aldershot sits in relation to Ealing and was pleasantly surprised to find it was only 30 odd minutes drive away. I persuaded The Son to leave the sanctuary that is his duvet by promising some food from the post-run catering van and we collected Other Dan from the Polish War Memorial en-route.
We passed an awesome looking army assault course as I followed the handy parkrun signs to the correct car park and the three of us wondered if it was ever open for the general public to use.
There was a huge turnout for this inaugural (455 recorded finishers!) due to the cancellation of the nearby Frimley Lodge parkrun (something similar happened for the Osterley Park inaugural as Gunnersbury was cancelled the same week). We joined the crowds at the start line for the run briefing and bumped into some fellow Eagle tourists.
We positioned ourselves somewhere in the middle of the crowd and we were off running across the park. The course starts on tarmac before exiting onto the pedestrian pavement that runs along a main road. I was running with The Son and he immediately became annoyed because “I was running too fast” and I was annoyed because he kept changing his pace so that I appeared to be “running too fast”. We ended up bickering throughout the first lap as he slowed down, I moaned at him and he argued that I kept going too fast. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Thankfully we both realised that arguing as we ran wasn’t really a pleasant experience so we turned our talk to another subject and gently ran the second lap together. The course itself is made up of a tarmac path at the start, a grass section across the park land, the pedestrian pavement by the main road and then a trail that runs next to a canal. I can imagine that the canal section will become muddy & slippery through the wet winter months so this could be a course for ‘roadworthy trail’ shoes at certain times of the year.
Running Dan parkrun result:
- parkrun time: 0:32:22
- Garmin time: 0:32:22
- Finish position: 372 / 455
- Gender position: 260 / 285
- Age category: VM40-44
- Age grade: 42.17 %
The Son parkrun result:
- parkrun time: 0:32:21
- Garmin time:
- Finish position: 371 / 455
- Gender position: 259 / 285
- Age category: JM11-14
- Age grade: 45.96 %
