Jersey Farm parkrun - event 119

On the 6th August 2022 I ran the Jersey Farm parkrun which was the 119th event held at the venue, my 89th parkrun and 24th different course I'd attended.

Completing parkrun challenges is not as easy as you might think. For example, it's actually impossible to complete a parkrun beginning with X, to get a Y you have to go to York, or hope that Yeovil bring back their elapsed event. To complete a parkrun beginning with Z you have to travel to Holland or Poland. The letter J is not much better with events few and far between, so when the opportunity to arose to tick of Jersey Farm from my parkrun list I was going to take it!

With summer holidays fast approaching and nothing in the diary Stephanie and I asked the kids what they all wanted to do during the six weeks off. Each one of them said the same thing, "Alton Towers", so we formed a plan! As with most plans these days, they only really work when a parkrun is included. Or in this case, two!

In order to make the most of Alton Towers we booked a cottage in the Peak District. In fact, I'm writing this from the cottage itself and am grateful for the internet connection as this place really is in the middle of nowhere! Perfect!

To break up the drive on the Saturday with three irritable kids in the back of the car we decided to divide it into three legs, firstly by stopping in Sandridge which is a small village just outside St Alban's, home of Jersey Farm Woodland park. Followed by a stop in Birmingham to visit Cadbury World and the final leg north to the bungalow in the middle of nowhere.

We left home, seven minutes past seven which was the scheduled departure time. I knew that the advised travel time allowed us plenty of wiggle room but always plan for the worse! As it was, we were very fortunate as the M25 was quiet and we arrived in just over an hour.

As the park itself has no parking, nor facilities we followed the advisory information on the course description page of the event website which is also often repeated on the events Facebook page. Participants are advised to use the free car park in Sandridge village and walk ten minutes to the park which is exactly what we did. As an added bonus there is a public toilet block which came in handy after the short drive before the event and afterwards where I got changed ahead of the longer trip north.

The walk from the car park to the start is actually very pleasant and you travel along part of the course so it gave us a nice taster of what to expect. I say 'us', but it was only me who was participating. As much as I tried to convince the kids and Stephanie to run, walk or jog along with me none of them could be pursuaded.

It became apparent, just be walking to the start line that the course was going to be of the 'undulating' variety. It also became clear that it was also going to be very scenic with some lovely views across Hertfordshire peeping out across the park in certain corners.

The course itself starts in the centre of the park at its highest point. It consists of a small starting loop before two laps of the park itself. The first loop is on a bridleway on the perimeter of the park whilst the second is on fields inside the park itself.

The small starting loop, I assume is designed to help spread the field out a little bit as the bridleway path, whilst not narrow could be too small to accommodate a decent crowd. There were a good number of tourists making up the field and was one of the busiest, if not the busiest first timers briefing i'd seen.

From the start, participants head around the small field where everyone gathered in readiness, before passing a patch of trees and heading down hill via a path alongside another field. As we've been having such beautiful weather the fields were straw like and the ground underfoot hard and dusty. At the bottom of the field the path swing right onto the bridle path before 'u' turning back onto the field and back uphill again towards the start line.

This is the first of three runs up this hill, once as just described, the second at the end of the first full lap and the third at the end of the final lap. Upon each turn, the hill appeared to get progressively longer and slightly steeper, maybe that was just my over active imagination!

One you've reached the top field here, participants turn left on the first lap which leads you back to the bridleway path. This path is then followed as described above around the circumference of the park. It is treelined and therefore lovely and cool which was a welcome relief. The sun shone romantically through the leaves where the tree cover was slightly thin, making me blink as I ran due to the intermittent brightness.

Once the first lap is complete and the hill successfully climbed for the second time instead of turning left, participants carry straight down, starting the second lap that covers the internal parts of the park. Whilst you are running on what is effectively farmland the paths here were lovely and flat, partly due to the straw like grass, but partly because of the impact the weather has had on the soil. The lap isn't a carbon copy of the first as it follows the shape of the field boundaries and so makes for an interesting picture when you look back on your Strava route as it's not easy to describe.

Without those obsessive parkrun challenges I'd never experience gems such as Jersey Farm. Whilst even after all this time I can't say within any confidence that I actually like running, but I know for a fact places like this make the experience so much more enjoyable!

In the end I finished in 106th place out of a field of 170 in a time of 29:48, which on an undulating course such as this one I can be incredibly pleased with!