Pegwell Bay parkrun - event 414

On the 3rd September 2022 I ran the Pegwell Bay parkrun which was the 414th event held at the venue, my 93rd parkrun and 28th different course I'd attended.

Options for the letter P are fairly few and far between from where I live, and with the dual aim of completing all the parkruns in Kent alongside the parkrun alphabet, Pegwell Bay was the perfect venue that fulfilled both criteria.

Research had told me that the course was going to be flat and fast, and rumours of the course being slightly short of the official 5k required were plentiful online across various parkrun tourism groups on Facebook.

I'm admittedly not a fast runner and wouldn't consider myself anyway athletic. I started parkrun with times of around 34-36 minutes and it has taken a lot of effort to get times down to a level I'm starting to feel pride in. My quickest ever parkrun time was registered earlier this year at the Cyclopark event which was the culmination in many weeks of repeated visits and slowly eating away at the time and getting a feel and familiarity for the course. I was overjoyed with a time of 27:53 and felt that I'd be able to successfully beat that time in subsequent weeks but the tourism bug bit and I've only ran at the venue once more since.

Going into the event at Pegwell Bay, armed with the research I had behind me I felt that it was an opportunity to get a decent time. I had set myself a target of 28 minutes something and would have been happy with that. The last two parkruns have been frustrating affairs, walking both times and not getting as good a time as perhaps I thought I should be aiming for. So confidence wasn't particularly high.

I have visited Thanet many times, Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs etc, but before parkrun I'd never heard of Pegwell Bay Country Park and one of the things that has kept me touring is discovering new places. The park itself is due south of Ramsgate on the coast towards Sandwich.

Upon arrival, I took my usual walk around the park, took some photographs of the venue and admired the views across the bay to the white cliffs of Ramsgate in the distance. There was a strong floral smell in the air, which I couldn't identify. If I had to guess, I'd say juniper based on the look of the berries on the plants that separated the paths and the sea. The water was like a millpond and the conditions were perfect for running.

The course itself is two very straightforward laps around the circumference of the park. Viewed from above the course map looks slightly like a right-angle triangle meaning that there's only really three turns to navigate.

From the start line participants run on a tarmac path, which shortly after the start reaches the main entrance and car park access road.  Volunteers are lined up here to prevent anyone coming into the park whilst runners are on enroute. I should mention that there's on site parking, which costs £2.50 for the entire day. As I was early arriving I was able to nab a prime spot directly next to the finish line. Although there is plenty more free parking available on the main road outside of the park.

Once the access road has been safely crossed, the tarmac path is picked up again and leads you along the outer edge of the park parallel to the main road that leads you to the venue. After a short period the path changes to a compacted gravel path where it remains for the duration of the lap.

The path surface change is notable and with it does come some very minor bumps and bobbles, resembling more of a country lane that also reduces in width a little in comparison to the wider tarmac path.

Participants continue on until reaching the first marshall who directs you left, continuing along the base of the 'triangle' in an anti-clockwise direction and towards the sea. The path here leads through an open kissing gate which I assume is opened especially for the event. A small word of caution here as it can get a little congested as there's not masses of room.

This leg of the course feels the most off-road like, and I'd imagine in the winter months being the part of the course that would be most affected by any inclement weather. It also contained the majority of the bumps and bobbles and the most notable elevation changes (if you can even call it that).

With the sea approaching and another marshall directing you left again the route changes direction for the return leg back to the tip of the triangle. This path is the most meandering of the three legs of the laps and the most memorable what with the sea now on your right. The floral smell of juniper (or whatever it was) remained strong here and the view across the water was a pleasure to run alongside. Towards the end, the path narrows and becomes almost single file for a stretch. It eventually bends around to the left and rejoins the tarmac path at the start with another marshall and the final left hand turn.

The first lap went by reasonably quickly and I was surprised to see the start/finish line quite so soon. I always find the back part of any run the hardest and so inevitably the second lap was going to be key to my eventual finishing time. The second lap is identical to the first and I felt my customary struggle as the lap wore on.

My running shorts and phone aren't very compatible. I have a phone that is exactly the same width as the zip that conceals the pocket and at the end of any run there's a huge faff as I try to extract my phone out so I can press stop on my Strava app. Inevitably once I'd finished the second lap and crossed the finish line I spent the next few moments frustratingly digging around with my shorts and trying to extract my phone - the longer it takes me to retrieve my phone the longer my run time becomes. Eventually, after an even longer mobile signal induced wait Strava gave me the news I'd been waiting for and said that I'd finished in 27:22!

According to Strava I'd beaten my previous best parkrun time by over 30 seconds! I spent the whole drive home on a massive high and completely elated and wondering how I might be able to move to Broadstairs to live so I could run the same parkrun every week and potentially look to go even faster!

You can then only imagine my complete surprise and delight when, after an hour's drive home and checking my emails I got my official time of 27:04! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh as it was massively faster than I'd expected or cry because I was so close to what I consider to be an impossible sub-27!

One other final, memorable point to note about this event was meeting and chatting with a fellow parkrun tourist. Sharing stories on Facebook with like minded people in groups of shared interests is one of the better uses of the platform. I got talking on Facebook with a chap who ran frequently at Pegwell Bay and was a good source of advice and recommendations. He said that he was running the event on the same day as me and be certain to say hello, which I did and shared other stories face-to-face. My final time may have been a wonderful achievement, but the community aspect is by far deeper and much more meaningful.

I finished 77th out of a field of 148 participants.