Brentwood parkun - event 377

On the 27th January 2024 I ran the Brentwood parkrun which was the 377th event held at the venue, my 167th parkrun and 92nd different course I'd attended.

It's now part of my weekly routine, rewriting my parkrun planner on the basis of my mate Foordy and his last minute decision making. I've planned my parkrun schedule out well in advance and there are routine changes depending upon cancellations or last minute things that crop up. But invariably I'll stick to a plan. Foordy doesn't and he likes to live a day at a time.

Nobody answered my weekly call to arms and so I assumed I'd be running by myself at the as planned Crystal Palace event. Foordy was due to head down to Folkestone with Will and Reaso and so I was very much looking forward to the challenge. But I got a text message on Friday morning from Foordy saying that he and Reaso were available on Saturday morning after all and would be up for a parkrun, albeit one a bit closer than Crystal Palace. 

Challenge accepted.

After completing 90 odd parkruns finding a local event is getting increasingly harder. There are multiple events I can return back to, but I'm not quite ready for that yet! 

As Foordy has joined me recently on various different courses and event routes, the one that we were missing was a decent cross country course. We'd also visited primarily flat courses too, so needed something more challenging. The closest event to us that met all the relevant criteria was Brentwood. Plan B was on.

I'd read a few reviews and I knew that Brentwood would provide a decent challenge. The course description made reference to Heartbreak Hill and the hill that keeps on giving. The reviews used words such as 'beast', 'brutal' and 'unforgiving', so I was genuinely looking forward to seeing what the course had to offer. It was also supposed to be really muddy in the winter which was to only add to the challenge.

However, the weather helped us out massively as upon arrival the ground was frozen and the fields of the Weald Country Park where the event takes place were covered in a white blanket of frost. What would ordinarily have been muddy tracks around the fields we're now frozen ruts and solid hard ground. Improving our chances of a better timez but increasing the likelihood of a turned ankle.

From the carpark and start line you can only really see a small proportion of the course. The park has rolling fields, with a lake at the bottom of the hill on one side and woods along another. On the side of the car park was a play area for children and an enclosure where deer were roaming around.

The course is a single lap, part out and back which starts and finishes in the field next to the carpark. From the start line which is just a short way into the field from the edge, participants head back out towards the carpark, turn left and follow the field around it's perimeter which rises up slightly to a line of trees on its southern edge.

Following the field around with the hard ground crunching satisfyingly underfoot, participants eventually reach the top of what is known as Heartbreak Hill. The first encounter is actually rather pleasant as it's the first descent which follows a series of small undulations which offer a hint of what's to come.

At the bottom of Heartbreak Hill is the first kilometer marker, which is still fairly uncommon at parkrun events. Not all parkrun courses are marked out with kilometer markers and I prefer ones that do as I find them mentally rewarding to mark of the distance as you go.

Once the bottom of the hill.has been reached the route veers off ever so slightly and transitions between two fields and turns out of the second field onto a woodland track and enters into the trees.

The second kilometer is mostly uphill through the woods on quite a decent surface. Although it was cold and the ground was hard I'd imagine it would be soft and muddy otherwise but not on the same levels as Hockley Woods was on the back end of last year - now that was muddy!

Once out of the woods at the top of the hill the route loops around and heads back into another field back the way we've just come. You can see people running the route from inside the trees and likewise when running back through the field which is the only real interaction between runners that you get on the course. 

The next two kilometres are taken across a series of fields and grass paths that run along avenues between tree lines. It's actually a really pleasant two kilometres and offers the challenge of an undulating terrain as the course weaves up and down hills as it goes.

Once completed the course reaches the bottom of Heartbreak Hill which starts just beyond the last kilometer marker indicating an almost 1km ascent to the top.

I'm not good at hills, I don't have the mental strength to keep going when the going gets tough. But I'd made it around 4km of what was a challenging course. I wanted to complete the whole 5k without stopping and so I dug in deep to keep going for as long as I could. Reaso told me later that he nearly gave up towards the end, which is the first time on a 5k that he'd ever contemplated the idea and shows just how much of a challenge this was.

Once I'd made it to the top it was a case of seeing it home to the end via the perimeter of the field in which we'd started. Only the field now was a moist green, the early frost had melted away and the ground had softened making for quite a nice running surface for a quick sprint back to the finish line. It was slightly downhill as well which also helped and set up for some competitive finishes.

I finished in 68th position out of a field of 122 participants in a time of 30:40. With my times settling down and being much more consistent now, the time I set at Brentwood was representative of the challenge faced by the course. Bothe Foordy and Reaso were around three minutes slower than usual, as was I. 

Reaso said he wasn't a fan of the cross-country route, which bizarrely I always really enjoy. But that for me is the reason for touring. Trying out different events, tackling different challenges and negotiating different terrains. 92 down and plenty more to go!