South Norwood parkrun - event 233

On the 8th April 2023 I ran the South Norwood parkrun which was the 233rd event held at the venue, my 125th parkrun and 54th different course I'd attended.

After the experience of Whinlatter Forest parkrun last week, this week parkrun jaunt was going to feel very much like a poor relation. However, every parkrun is a unique experience and every course has its own characteristics making them all memorable for completely different reasons.

I'd chosen to run South Norwood parkrun for two reasons, one it's part of the LonDone venue list and secondly it was celebrating a Fibonacci event I'd not done yet. There was a decision to be made between this one and Alton Water, where I'd discussed the possibility of running there with Stephanie and the children in attendance before having a day out somewhere on the Suffolk coast, but Hayden had a football match and so we were led into doing what was easiest for Hayden's game.

Stephanie and the two younger children came along for a change to watch. Phoebe's performing arts class were on Easter break and so whilst I couldn't convince either of the children to run around with me, nor parkwalk they ended up being spectators instead. Although I do suspect that Hayden and Phoebe ended up playing in the park the whole time and we're oblivious to what was going on around them!

We parked at Croydon Sports Centre, home of Croydon FC who are nicknamed 'The Trams' on account of their stadiums proximity to the tram line that runs across the back of their stadium. It was the tramline that we can to cross from the carpark into South Norwood country park, home of the South Norwood parkrun.

The course starts and finishes by the play area and is a two lap clockwise affair. Majority of the course is on form gravel paths, but there are parts on trail and parts on grass. The whole course accumulates mud and puddles and was particularly soft underfoot on the grass areas but would have been much worse last week after the rains we'd had. But a drier spell this week meant much of the course had tried out, but there were areas where we had to swerve around puddles, or jump over them if running directly through wasn't your thing.

The lap is quite difficult to describe, so I won't try to navigate you through it. But the lap meanders around the country path in a similar way as Malling parkrun does, but weaves in and out of enclosed areas where there is tree cover, semi enclosed areas all the way into wide open spaces across the field towards the back of the course.

The last part of the lap is a little bit of elevation up a short hill that loops up before coming around and back down the other side in a short, sharp downhill towards the start/finish area which gives participants a nice boost to start the second lap, or a gee up to finish the event.

I finished in 64th place out of a field of 185 participants in a time of 27:30. I felt that time was fairly reasonable on a fairly tricky surface that was surprisingly more difficult that I had expected beforehand. The meandering nature of the course didn't help either, but I wasn't there for the time, but to enjoy running in another unique location where I'd never have visited had it not been for parkrun.