Parkrun tourism: Thoulstone parkrun

While on holiday at Center Parcs Longleat recently, my husband, younger son, dad, brother-in-law and I all ran Thoulstone parkrun near Warminster in Wiltshire. The last three times we’ve been to Center Parcs, we’ve run The Old Showfield parkrun, which we all enjoyed. Thoulstone started about six months ago, so we thought it would be nice to try a different one. As a bonus, it is even closer to Center Parcs than The Old Showfield.

As our accommodation was about as far away from the Center Parcs car park as it’s possible to get, we had to set off pretty early. We knew there were no toilets before 9am at Thoulstone parkrun, so we stopped at Warminster services, as recommended on the parkrun website. The Pavilion Restaurant on site opens at 9am, so is available to parkrunners after the event.

There is a spacious car park on site and no public transport to Thoulstone parkrun. Dogs aren’t allowed to run at Thoulstone because there are sheep on the course, however spectators can take dogs along on a lead.

There are usually around 120 to 150 finishers at Thoulstone. It was slightly higher when we there at 163, boosted by quite a big group of Vegan Runners. As a fairly new parkrun, it was definitely still drawing in people who are big on tourism. There were two ladies there who have done 220 different parkruns! They haven’t repeated a single one. I admire their dedication, but wouldn’t have the inclination, the time or the money. I like our home parkrun and the familiarity of it.

We went to the first timers’ briefing and learned that there are sheep on the course and the course is marked with orange markers, which we need to keep to our left. They didn’t mention whether we should stay left or right ourselves, but it wasn’t really necessary as the course wasn’t that crowded.

Thoulstone parkrun is a scenic, two lap course, which starts with a fairly steep gravel path. As ever at a parkrun with fairly low numbers, I lined up near the front. My husband and I overtook each other several times during the run.

The gravel path is apparently approximately 500m. It didn’t actually feel that long! Then a marshal let all the runners through a gate and we were onto a big open area of grass parkland. This is largely flat, but the surface of the ground is very uneven. We were fine in road shoes in August, but I think it would be one for trail shoes in winter or after periods of heavy rain. It would be difficult to manage while pushing a buggy.

Once we were off the gravel path, the remainder of the course was on the grass. It was nice to know we wouldn’t have to do that hill again!

There was a young girl ahead of me. I closed the gap on her a couple of times, but couldn’t catch her. I was aware that there was a woman of about my age on my shoulder and there was no way I was letting her catch me! Of course, parkrun isn’t a race, but you can treat it like a race if you want to. When I do tourism, I like to bring my A game and get the best possible time and position I can.

The Thoulstone parkrun course kind of reminded me a bit of Bushy park, because it was a big, open loop. We lapped quite a few people, but it was never narrow and there wasn’t much twisting or turning and changing of direction.

The finish line is on the grass, close to the start line. Both my husband and dad almost cut a corner on the way to the finish line and had to be redirected by a marshal. The second lap is exactly the same as the first lap, but they saw the finish line ahead and didn’t realise they still had to finish the loop before running for it.

I crossed the finish line in 22:37 – a second behind my husband and two seconds ahead of the lady who’d been on my shoulder. I was second female, which I was happy with. My brother-in-law was a minute after me and my son less than a minute after him. My dad, who is 80, had 17 people behind him! While we were waiting for my dad to finish, we were chatting to one of the marshals who told us she worked at Center Parcs, then my son and husband realised she’d served them the previous evening.

When and if we go back to Center Parcs Longleat again, we’ll be torn between going to Thoulstone parkrun or The Old Showfield parkrun.

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.