Parkrun tourism: Kingsway parkrun

I recently did some parkrun tourism at Kingsway parkrun on the outskirts of Gloucester. For me, it was my final Gloucestershire parkrun. It has taken literally years to get round all of them!

Kingsway parkrun is based at Kingsway sports pavilion on a big recreation field in Quedgeley, south of Gloucester. It is very easily accessible from Junction 12 of the M5 and is on three different bus routes from Gloucester city centre.

There is a car park at the pavilion, but it’s not big enough for all the parkrunners. Although I arrived early enough to park there. There were also families parking there for kids to play football on the sports ground. Alternative parking is available at Asda, just opposite the pavilion. Asda just requests that parkrunners park away from the store entrance, unless they’re intending to go shopping.

Toilets were in the pavilion and they were nice and clean! You can leave your bags, coats and jumpers etc in the pavilion, but I didn’t bother, as I could just leave them in the car. Coffee, tea and cake was available to buy in the pavilion after parkrun. The takings from this cover the cost of hiring the pavilion.

I’d read up on the Kingsway parkrun course and it sounded pretty complicated. As it happens, we were on the winter alternative route, which is slightly different. It was all explained to us in the first timers’ briefing and again in the main run director’s briefing.

The winter course is entirely on paths – some tarmac and some more uneven, unfinished. It starts with a lap of the sports field, then there are three bigger laps.

The run started promptly at 9am and we were off! We turned right almost immediately to run up the side of the sports field. The route then goes just behind the field, along the top, on a narrow path. This had lots of puddles when I ran it. It continues along the outside of the sports field, in front of a housing estate. Then we ran back along the bottom of the sports field, past the pavilion, ready to start the first of three big laps.

For the big lap, we turned left just after the pavilion (where we’d turned right previously) and then almost immediately right. This took us on a big loop. A lot of the paths were narrow. We’d been told to run on the left and overtake on the right, which is the exact opposite to my home parkrun. I made sure I kept that in mind and followed the rules!

This loop felt surprisingly quick and we were back at the top of the sports field again before I knew it. Then the lap was the same as the ‘small’ lap. Then I just had to run the big lap another two times.

Kingsway parkrun is almost entirely flat. There is one very small incline on the big lap heading back towards the sports field. I overtook the same two people every time at this point and then they overtook me later on. Apart from on the last lap, when the lady didn’t overtake me, so that was a boost to my gender position!

The finish funnel was very close to the start line and was the only time we needed to run on grass on the winter course. Although my feet were wet anyway from the massive puddles on the path.

I enjoyed Kingsway parkrun. It is a flat, fast course. For me, it was my first attempt at running a fast parkrun for nearly three months. Having run races every weekend from August bank holiday weekend through to the start of November, I’d been either walking parkrun or running it in around 30 to 31 minutes. I was happy with 22:55 for my first parkrun back to running properly. I was sixth female. The previous two weeks, I would have been first female with that time!

The first finisher finished in 17:22 and the first female finished in 20:27. They had the same surname, so I’m guessing they were siblings.

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 are on holiday or need to be somewhere other than our local park at 9am on a Saturday. But we also like to go somewhere different just for fun every now and then. Some people do challenges with their parkrun tourism, which are on the 5k app. I’ve never bothered with these, but my friend Joy aka Pink Oddy is a fan.follow

We’ve been slowly working our way through the Gloucestershire parkruns. I haven’t blogged about all of them, but I’ve now done them all: Berkeley Green, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Fire Service College, Forest of Dean, Gloucester City, Gloucester North, King George V Playing Field (Cheltenham), Kingsway, Lydney, Mallards Pike, Newent, Stonehouse, Stratford Park (Stroud), Tewkesbury, Tetbury Goods Shed, Wotton.