parkrun tourism: Victoria Embankment parkrun

My husband and I recently ran Victoria Embankment parkrun in Nottingham. This one was special to us. As soon as I knew about its existence, I knew we had to run it.

Not only did we used to live in Nottingham, not only did we live a stone’s throw from the embankment, but the embankment is where we actually started running – way back in 1994. We also ran our first two half marathons (Nottingham in 1995 and 1996) starting from the embankment.

Victoria Embankment was the furthest we’d ever driven on a morning just for a parkrun. Our previous long journey parkruns, including Exeter Riverside, Weymouth and Trentham Gardens, have all been because we were either going on holiday or on a day out in the area.

Victoria Embankment parkrun is a relatively new one, which started in March this year. It attracts around 500 runners a week and still seems to be getting a lot of tourists, as parkrunners no doubt use it for various challenges.

The parkrun is accessible by various forms of public transport. It is about a 10 minute walk from the bus and trams stops on Trent Bridge. We took advantage of the recommended large car park at County Hall, just the other side of the river. There is a huge number of spaces, so there should never be a shortage of parking. Parking on the embankment or in the nearby The Meadows area isn’t allowed. To get to the start line, you need to cross Wilford Suspension Bridge (foot bridge). The parkrun website describes the walk from the car park at County Hall as five minutes. I jogged it and even jogging it took more than five minutes.

There is just one toilet for all parkrunners at Romano’s Cafe (or Cafe 1881 as it also seems to be called) on the embankment, very close to the start line. The queue was pretty long when I joined it after my jog from the car park and it got a lot longer. My husband took one look at it and went in search of ‘men’s public toilets’ in a hedge. I emerged from the toilet at 8:57am – breaking the 8:54 record I’d set two weeks previously at Killerton Country parkrun.

Needless to say, I’d missed the first timers’ briefing. My husband said all I needed to know was that the finish line was about 300 metres after the suspension bridge. I caught most of the main briefing, but there was nothing too noteworthy or different to remember.

Victoria Embankment parkrun is two and a bit loops of a stretch of the embankment. It’s almost an out and back, except the ‘back’ section uses a lower path, closer to the river.

We started at just after 9am. I’d probably put myself slightly too far back in the pack, but I was soon able to find my natural place. The paths are very nice and wide, so overtaking wasn’t a problem. The run starts by running along the embankment away from the city towards a road bridge. After about 0.75 miles, or just over 1km if you prefer, runners turn down onto the lower path, closer to the River Trent.

Again, the lower path was very wide, so there was no fear of falling in the water and no problem with overtaking. Before the turn, I could see the two lead runners way ahead of everyone else. After the turn, I could see my husband still heading in the other direction, but he didn’t see me. He’s always in the zone!

Victoria Embankment is a dog friendly course and we had Hetty with us. But we also had our daughter with us, so she’d agreed to keep hold of Hetty for the first lap, when it would be more congested. My husband ran with her on the second lap, when the pack was more spread out.

Being alongside a river, Victoria Embankment parkrun is very flat. The weather was also the coolest we’d had in months (with the exception of the very cold and wet Lost Gardens of Heligan parkrun in June), so I was running at a good pace. We were now running towards the suspension bridge. The turn for the second lap was just beyond the start line and just before the suspension bridge.

With Victoria Embankment parkrun being so straightforward, there was only a handful of marshals out on the course. There was one at the turn for the second lap holding signs to indicate where you needed to go for the first and second laps.

And then I ran it all over again. At one point, I did the maths and thought my time was going to come out in the high 23 minutes – the sort of time I usually get at our slightly hilly home parkrun.

I was running on the heels of a man in (I would guess) in his 30s. I heard a spectator say something about us running together and he sped up! He would have sped up even more if he’d realised the person just behind him was a woman in her 50s. I did beat him in the end and he spoke to me afterwards. It was his first parkrun and he needed to know what to do with the barcode!

I ran under the suspension bridge for the finish and I was confused! I could see the finish line, but I could also see tape for the course in the distance. We had to run a lot further towards Trent Bridge than I’d imagined, before turning and running back towards the suspension bridge for the finish. That bit nearly killed me!

I’d done my maths wrong. I finished in 22:15, which was my third fastest time this year (I’d run 21:40 at Severn Bridge and 22:00 at Berkeley Green) with a very respectable age grading of 77.23%.

We loved Victoria Embankment parkrun. It was a long drive, but hopefully we will be back.