Harrow Lodge parkrun – 5th March 2016
- Greenwich parkrun – TBC
- Nonsuch parkrun – 12th March 2016
- Orpington parkrun – TBC
- Tooting Common parkrun – 16th April 2016
Another Lon-done parkrun complete and only four more to go. My spreadsheet of doom is nearly all green rather than the sea of red I remember from this time last year. We even have dates for Nonsuch and Tooting Common, which means that I will probably be Lon-done on Saturday 16th April.
This week we swapped a car journey for an early meet at Hanger Lane station to take the Central Line to Mile End and then the District Line to Elm Park. A short walk took us to Harrow Lodge Park where we congregated at the parkrun start area and Other Dan bumped into a friend from East London Runners. We had a chat about appropriate footwear – Other Dan has chosen racing flats based on photos of runners on the course last week, I had gone for my hybrid trail shoes after checking out some blogs, and Other Dan’s friend was wearing train shoes because he’d run the course before. The course was mostly a mixture of grass and trail so trail shoes were better but Other Dan got away with racing flats although they were muddy by the end.
My fitness continues to fall while my weight continues to rise. Other Dan is still finding his feet after a long injury imposed rest so we were jogging round together. It doesn’t help that I suffered a side strain due to random unknown reason that stopped me running through the week. Roll on next week when I can hopefully string a few decent runs together again.
It’s a one lap course around a deceptively large park that starts on grass (soft to muddy in the winter) and joins some tarmac paths before finishing on the grass again. The park now has some permanent parkrun marker posts dotted around so it’s an easy to follow route with the placement of friendly marshals. I was surprised that there weren’t more runners – it’s a big park, there’s plenty of surrounding housing, it’s close to a small shopping area, and the event is managed by an enthusiastic running club.
We enjoyed our run and both agreed that we’d like to tackle the course during the summer when the going is firm and we’re both fitter.
