Finsbury Park parkrun - event 611

On the 18th November 2023 I ran the Finsbury Park parkrun which was the 611th event held at the venue, my 155th parkrun and 82nd different course I'd attended.

Once again my parkrun plans this weekend were reconfigured at the last minute by issues with our car. Ideally our Meriva would visit the scrap man and call it a day, but finances dictate otherwise.

Friday night whilst driving home from Gillingham Football Club to visit the new club shop I noticed strange sounds coming from the vehicle. Once home it was confirmed to be an issue with the exhaust. So Friday night, right at the last minute I screwed up my plans to head over to Essex for Markshall Estates 98th event and trawled the map to find an alternative event that I could complete by public transport.

Adding further complication to my last minute planning was the realisation that engineering works at Gravesend would mean an extra challenge to my morning travel plans.

I asked Stephanie if she was able to get me to Ebbsfleet International in the morning instead, and with a few grumbles she agreed. Game on!

The capital always offers an abundance of choice when it comes to parkrun events, but I wanted to do another new one and they are all relatively easy to get to via public transport. I opted for one of the more straightforward ones; Finsbury Park, which was only a short tube ride away from Kings Cross/St Pancras.

I have been to Finsbury park before. I thought it was in the 90s, but in writing this I thought I'd have a look on YouTube and it was actually 2002. Oasis were playing a number of gigs at the park and I went to one of them. I don't remember much about the park, or the gig itself really apart from the fact it was absolute carnage with people bouncing up and down everywhere and plastic cups raining down all night filled with beer and piss! Great times!

On arrival, as I was really early I took a walk around the park and didn't recognise any of it from my previous visit. When I got to the cafe there was a pictorial history of the park written on a sign board next to the lake which detailed lots of recent improvements to the park. After the series of gigs at the turn of the century the park fell into disrepair and it wasn't until the last decade where the investment has been made to improve the facilities in the grounds, with new paving, play areas and tennis courts installed.

The start and finish are in different places either side of the cafe, which is used as a gathering place pre-run. The start itself is to the west on the main carriageway that runs around majority of the perimeter of the park.

Two laps, in an anti-clockwise direction participants start downhill following the main carriageway until the bottom of the hill where it turns almost 180 degrees back upon itself and heads north in almost straight line back to the northern edge of the park.

The carriageway is wide and formed of tarmac, similar if you will to the carriageway at Dulwich a few weeks back. The approach back north heads gently upwards and dips back again where the route turns off the carriageway onto a smaller path leading up to the back of the lake via a short, but fairly steep change of elevation.

Reaching the highest part of the course at the lake, the route turns left and joins a smaller path which leads around the lake, twisting and turning as it goes. Part of the route here is through a small ceremonial style garden, which whilst not looking it's best due to the season. I'd imagine it looking much brighter and formal in the spring and summer months.

On the first lap, the path continues until the cafe before reaching the main carriageway where participants turn left and follow the lap around for lap two. At the end of the second a fork after the ceremonial garden takes participants a very short way down a small path which leads directly into the finish funnel.

I finished in 237th place out of a field of 478 participants in a time 27:41. I also finished remaining dry, which was a relief considering all the rain we had! Once I got back to Ebbsfleet International Stephanie was still running errands with kids and so I walked home, which is just under 3 miles. I was back home by 11am, just shy of 18,000 steps for the day!