Parkrun tourism: Severn Bridge B course

Back in May, my husband, eldest and I did some parkrun tourism at Severn Bridge parkrun. For me, Severn Bridge was a real bucket list parkrun and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a pretty special course. The briefing takes place in a tunnel covered in street art (the finish line is also in the tunnel). And the parkrun runs over the Severn Bridge from Wales into England. There’s nothing quite like it.

To make it even more special – I ran my best ever parkrun time – 22:15. This wasn’t officially recorded anywhere as a PB, as you have a PB at each course rather than an overall PB. And your first time is never recorded as a PB, so if I went back and ran a slower time, my first time wouldn’t be backdated to PB.

But the most important thing is that I knew in my head I’d run a very good PB.

We always intended to go back to Severn Bridge parkrun this year. A couple of our family members wanted to come too. (Parkrun is a big family thing for us – my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew all take part every week.)

We’d identified 21st October as the day to go. Then Storm Babet happened the day before. Although we were much luckier than some in our part of the world, the rain had still been biblical and everywhere was very wet. The forecast for Saturday morning was better though.

My family members dropped out. Should we still go?

Then we realised that the parkrun was going to be run on the ‘B course’. What was the B course? Did it even go over the bridge?!

We did some research and discovered that the B course is just the other carriageway. It still goes over the bridge! But the bridge would be closed for traffic coming from England to Wales, so we couldn’t use it to get there. Should we still go?

At this point, I should probably explain that Severn Bridge parkrun takes place on the ‘old’ Severn crossing, which is the M48 between England and Wales. Yes, it’s an actual motorway. The motorway is open and the parkrun runs along the surprisingly wide path next to the motorway. It is easily wide enough to have runners going in both directions along it.

We decided to go ahead and drive there through the Forest of Dean to get there. Driving through the Forest of Dean is shorter, but a lot slower. It’s A roads, but winding A roads going through villages. The weather was grey, damp and miserable. There are no toilets at Severn Bridge parkrun, so we stopped at a public toilet in a village in the Forest of Dean. Then my son realised there was a Tesco a couple of miles from the parkrun start in Chepstow, so we stopped there too! And saw some other parkrun tourists from our home parkrun.

Because I know Severn Bridge is a fast parkrun, I was wearing my very fast Nike Vapor Fly trainers. These are ridiculously expensive and reserved only for races, as I can’t afford to wear them out too quickly! I’d tried not to think about the possibility of getting a PB because the time I’d run last time was so good. But if I could get sub-23 (I haven’t gone sub-23 anywhere else this year or for several years), I would be very happy.

We parked our car in a little football club car park and walked down to the tunnel for the run briefing. A volunteer kindly took our jumpers for us and put them in the tunnel to keep dry.

For the usual Severn Bridge parkrun course, you walk through the tunnel then up to the bridge. Then to finish, you enter the tunnel at the far side. For the B course, you walk up the hill without going through the tunnel. To finish, you enter the tunnel at the near side, with a steep downill and sharp bend.

We walked up the hill to the start line and I foolishly hung back to wait for my son, who for some reason was the very last person to walk up the hill! That was rather silly, because the run was clearly going to start very soon and you need to put yourself in the right position – faster runners at the front and slower runners at the back. We got to the start line and my husband was close to the front. I squeezed past a few people, but couldn’t get as close to the front as I needed to, if I was going to get a good time.

The run started and I was literally having to run on the grass to get round people and try to get into position. My son was ahead of me, but I very quickly overtook him. My husband was ahead of me too, but it wasn’t long before I closed the gap, then just kept my distance. There was a teenage boy and a man just in front of me. I overtook the boy, then overtook the man just before the turn. Then my husband was just in front of me.

Needless to say, a bridge is pretty flat. But you do have to run uphill a bit to get up onto the bridge properly. The bridge almost feels like two bridges. It goes over one stretch of water (possibly the River Wye?), than it’s back over land, before going over the main River Severn/ Severn Estuary.

I felt like I was going very fast and I reached the turn before I knew it. I was disappointed to see four women or girls in front of me! I was hoping to be second or third female at the rate I was going. My husband was very surprised to see me just behind him at the turn. My son was still just behind me, but then he dropped back.

As soon as I turned, I was hit by a strong headwind. Running back wasn’t going to be as easy! When we first got onto the bridge, there were a couple of flags. I could see the flags a long way in the distance. They would mark the end of the run. Except of course they wouldn’t. Because we had to run down to the tunnel. The distance from the flags and off the bridge was surprisingly long. It was also uphill! How had I not noticed that when we walked up to the start line? For the last quarter of a mile, I was really just hanging on. I was completely exhausted, but I could see from my watch that even if I slowed right down I was going to get a very good time.

I finished in 23rd place in 21:52. The only time I’ve ever gone under 22 minutes on parkrun! (I did it once on (not)parkrun during Covid.) Bearing in mind that was my 320th run and I’ve been doing parkrun since 2015, when I was 41, that was a massive achievement. I was slightly disappointed to be 4th female, but there were obviously some very fast women and girls running that day. At my home parkrun, which has more than twice as many runners, I would have been 3rd female on that day with that time. My age grading was a massive 76.68% (the age grading allows you to compare runners of different ages and genders, my age grading was better than the first four men to finish!).

My husband and son both got a Severn Bridge PB.

I’m very glad we did the Severn Bridge parkrun B course!