Kingdom parkrun - event 107

On the 24th September 2022 I ran the Kingdom parkrun which was the 107th event held at the venue, my 96th parkrun and 31st different course I'd attended.

This week I was due to run the Folkestone parkrun event, but was changed as detailed in my last update. This swap in the schedule was not only fortunate due to the great weather at Folkestone last week but meant that I could run Kingdoms 107th event and tick a prime number off in the process. Not sure I have done my planning well enough if things like this accidentally happen as they should certainly happen by design.

Attempting to tick off parkruns by letters of the alphabet might seem a little obsessive to the outsider. But my argument is that without these obsessive type of interests I'd never have the experience of running events like Kingdom which are absolute gems in the parkrun event portfolio. And my experience of running these events enhances my appreciation for the organisation and for those who volunteer each week and enable these events to take place.

The Kingdom parkrun event is based near Penshurst and is in a part of Kent which I'm not too familiar. Stephanie and I looked at Penshurst Place as a location to get married back in the late Naughties, but it was too posh and expensive for us from what I can remember. The drive to the venue took me through some lovely Kentish villages south of Sevenoaks and looked like a place for a Sunday afternoon drive to find a random country pub in the summer for a nice lazy lunch.

Kingdom isn't really a park as such and is more of a facility for wellness and wellbeing. When I arrived at the carpark there were a group of people doing yoga by the main cafe area, and on getting out of the car there was a notable sense of peace and tranquility in the air, adding to the feeling of nature and serenity that was evident by the surroundings.

Located at the top and side of a hill there are far reaching views across the Weald of Kent from all across the grounds of the Kingdom complex. Mostly covered by trees and forest the grounds are defined and shaped by a mountain bike trail which the parkrun course uses for most of its length. As I was early I took a walk around the course as part of a gentle warm-up but wanted to get a sense of the task ahead. I knew that the course was a three lap affair, with the first part of the lap being downhill there's the inevitable return back up again, which whilst long wasn't particularly steep and therefore I believed to be reasonable achievable for an anti-hill runner like myself. 

From the course map on the Kingdom event page you could see that the lap was tight and twisty but as always the course map doesn't quite tell the story. From the start the path leads gradually downwards covered by a canopy of trees which were lush and damp from the light autumn chill. Winding gradually downward the path twists it way back upon itself in a series of esses that gradually undulates as it dips up and down with a tight banked turns marked with caution markers, "slippery corner" being one to keep an eye on.

I was wearing my brand new pair of trail shoes which I purchased after nearly coming a cropper at Nonsuch a couple of weeks back and was grateful for the expenditure as they gave me not only grip but confidence too as my feet remained planted firmly on the ground. At the far end of the lap and beyond the tight banked 'slippery corner' the course turns back on itself again and takes the inside of the same corner in a complex that was labelled 'the washing machine' in the pre-race briefing. Once spat out of the complex of corners and switchbacks the course starts to make straighten out a little and makes its way back upwards towards the start and the end of the lap.

At the top of the course is the main building complex, which hosts the main cafe, toilets and function room. A wooden structure built on stilts nestles into the hillside with the path circumnavigating its footings and around the side to the right. This path is arguably the hardest part of the course as not only is it the steepest part of the uphill climb it's also the trickiest surface made up of loose gravel which slipped underfoot. On the third lap the finish is just at the top of the incline making any type of sprint finish virtually impossible.

I found the entire run exhilarating and so much fun! The twisty, downward sloping, banked turns were like a green and leafy toboggan run which encouraged you to run fast and let gravity do its thing. With the course so compact and at different levels there was always someone close by without being in the way. There were only 50 or so participants but there was always someone nearby on the course and you could give encouragement wherever you were placed. On the last upward climb I was overtaken by a buggy runner and half wished I was in the pushchair instead of the child who must have been having a whale of a time!

I finished in 27th place out of a field of 57 people in a time of 29:42. I ticked off my letter K on the alphabet challenge and completed my 16th event in Kent out of a possible 24. However, this was quite possibly one of my favourite parkrun events. I know how much I enjoyed Folkestone last week, so it does feel a bit repetitive of me saying the same thing. But I really did have fun on this course and it certainly is a unique and enjoyable event in a beautiful part of my home county. We are lucky in Kent to have so many great parkruns to choose from, something I've also said a number of times before!