Parkrun tourism: Heartlands parkrun

While on holiday in Padstow recently, my husband, younger son and I ran Heartlands parkrun. There are currently eight parkruns in Cornwall and we’ve previously run Eden Project, Lanhydrock and Land’s End. We chose Heartlands largely because it allows dogs (Eden Project doesn’t), but in the end we didn’t actually take Hetty with us.

Heartlands parkrun is located at Pool in Redruth and is very close to the A30 – making it nice and accessible for tourists. It is on the site of a former tin mine which has been regenerated as a tourist attraction, with some small businesses and housing on site. It was a lot nicer than I was expecting from the description on the website!

The website said there are toilets and parking on site. We didn’t find an actual car park – we could only find on street parking and it took us a minute or two to find a space. Sadly, the toilets were locked when arrived (and were still locked when we finished). There was a Costa nearby, so we drove over there to use the toilet before the start of the parkrun. (We did go back and buy drinks afterwards, so didn’t feel too guilty.)

By the time we’d done all this, we’d missed the first timers’ briefing. But as none of us was going to run in under 17 minutes, that wasn’t really a problem. We just had to follow the person in front.

It was a very hot day during the UK’s third heatwave of summer 2025. We’re used to it being around 18 degrees when we’re in Padstow. Later that day, it got to 28. I genuinely don’t think we’ve ever known it that hot in Cornwall before.

The course is three laps and almost completely flat. But it twists and turns a lot. You are never more than 400m from the start line – which gives you some idea of how many changes of direction there are!

As ever with a small parkrun (and knowing the first lady the previous week had run 22:24 – the exact time I’d run at Bushy Park the week before), I lined up very near the front. It was one of the quickest ‘3-2-1 go’ I’d ever heard. And we were off! There were two ladies just in front of me and I didn’t know where my husband and son were.

The course was mainly tarmac paths, with some short gravel bits. We ran off behind a visitor’s centre and then did a sharp turn across some gravel behind more buildings. Before we were halfway round the first lap, we got to a short, very narrow path where there was no room for overtaking. When we ran the narrow path on our third lap, slower runners and walkers were kind enough to stand aside to let faster runners past. Then there was a little garden and we were back by the start line. But we had to run through a playground and do loop of a big green space before we finished the first lap.

For the first time ever on any parkrun, volunteers were offering runners bottles of water as they ran past. It was very thoughtful of them on such a hot day. I wasn’t tempted, but I’m sure a few people would have been. There were obviously marshals with regular spots on the course – with Graham’s corner, Jim’s corner and Barbara’s bridge.

One of the ladies got away, but I gradually closed the gap on the other one, who I strongly suspected was in my age category. There was still no sign of my husband or son.

At the start of the third lap, my son (who isn’t an endurance runner at all and usually only does a couple of parkruns a year) overtook me, which was a surprise. Shortly afterwards, I found him walking. His watch had failed him, so he didn’t know how far he’d run. He’d seen the finish line, but hadn’t appreciated he still had to do nearly half a lap before he actually crossed the line. He’d timed his final ‘sprint finish’ for where he’d seen the finish line. But he was OK once he’d had a walk to recover.

I was now right on the tail of the lady in second. A couple of the volunteers shouted ‘well done, ladies!’ as we ran past, so she definitely knew I was there. Sometimes if you show your hand and overtake too early, it just makes them speed up to overtake back. But I was ready to overtake. She just waved me on and told me to go for it.

I crossed the line in 23:30. Our coach at the club told us that when it’s very hot, you can expect to run 20 to 30 seconds slower per mile, which makes perfect sense and means it was a proportional time to my 22:24 at Bushy Park. I was second female, which I was very happy with. My husband and son finished within 15 seconds of me. I had no idea they were so close.

We were given bottles of water at the end, which was a very kind gesture in the heat.

If you’re looking for an easily accessible parkrun in Cornwall, I would definitely recommend Heartlands parkrun. If you’ve got time to spare, there is a free English Heritage tin mining museum on site, although we didn’t visit.

Parkrun tourism is when you run at a parkrun other than your regular (‘home’) parkrun. Some people do it every week. Some people never do it. We mainly do it when we need to be somewhere other than our local park at 9am on a Saturday. But we also like to go somewhere different for a change every now and then. Some people do challenges with their parkrun tourism. Personally, I don’t have an interest in these, but my friend Joy aka Pink Oddy is a fan.