Southend parkrun - event 529

On the 17th February 2024 I ran the Southend parkrun which was the 529th event held at the venue, my 170th parkrun and 94th different course I'd attended.

All week leading up to parkrunday I'd planned to visit Oak Hill parkrun, for what feels like the fifth attempt. Everytime I add it to the planner something crops up and I don't end up making it and run elsewhere instead. This week was no exception.

The message arrived on my phone Friday morning. 'Can we run Leigh-on-Sea or Southend?'. It was from my friend Foordy and it was too random a request to be random. I acquiesced and said that Southend wouldn't be a problem. But it wasn't until later in the day that I received a follow-up message explaining the reason behind it.

Foordy needed a new pair of swimming goggles and unlike most normal people, avoided Amazon and wanted to hit the closest swimming Google shop to home... Which happened to be in Leigh-on-Sea. It could have been a lot further I suppose!

And so that was my latest excuse why Oak Hill parkrun was missed at the expense of another!

But anyhow, we arrived at Gunners Park at the far eastern end of Southend at the appropriate time on Saturday morning. It was Foordys first visit to Southend, but it was not my own. It was the furthest I'd travelled into the city as normally I only get as far as the football ground or the pleasure area on the seafront. So it was a nice experience for a change to drive allmthe way along the coast of Southend admiring some of the large properties that dot this part of the coastline.

Gunners Park is the name of the recreational space between a reasonably new build housing estate and the sea wall defences. The other side of the wall lies the coast, but all along the path are signs warning that any usual beach activity is forbidden on the advice of the ministry of defence. In the corner of the park sits a concrete building which is a remnant of the last world war and has had all its entry points sealed up with thick steel plates and is covered in graffiti.

The meeting point of the run is in the middle of the space and the lowest point of the park. This marks the finishing leg of the route which consists of three laps and the short finish straight which veers off to the centre.

The start begins on the tarmac path next to the junction with the housing estate and is on a slight incline. As the path is reasonably narrow.the event organisers have added marker points helping participants self-seed with the intention of reducing the bottle-neck.

I started right next to the 26-30 minute marker, but the getaway was slow and busy. I'm not sure that.many others were self-seeding or whether they needed to try and extend the distance between the markers to stretch things out. Ultimately it's not a race and shouldn't matter, but all constructive feedback is useful right?

The anti-clockwise lap makes it's way around the inside of the park before taking a left hand turn. The course now heads straight all the way to the top of the sea wall on a gentle incline.

Essentially the course is flat, but there are notable changea in elevation, you just can't tell you are doing it (if that makes any sense at all).

Nevertheless, once at the sea wall the route turns left again and leads you all the way to the front of the concrete structure from the war. It's fondly referred to locally as 'the castle', but this is evidently tongue in cheek.as there isn't much about it that you would recognise from one.

Once around the front of the castle there is a very short out and back section that's on grass, and a little bit muddy/slippy in places. We'd had a fair amount of rain and there were plenty of puddles on the course but as most of it's tarmac we didn't have any issues until the short section here.

Making our way back is a marshall as the course rejoins the main path. He was wearing a foam hand and made it his job to high-five every participant on the course. On all three laps. Meaning by the end of the event he'd given out 936 high-fives which is a record anyone should be proud of.

Past the high fiber guy the course is back at its lowest part and leads back towards the centre of the park where it heads up a short incline back to the start.

After three laps, once the start line has been reached for the last time the course turns left, dips down again and there's a short 50 yard dash to the finish.

I finished in 130th place out of a field of 312 participants in a time of 27:50, which I was quite pleased about considering the slow getaway at the start.