Woking parkrun - event 425

On the 3rd August 2024 I ran the Woking parkrun which was the 425th event held at the venue, my 195th parkrun and 117th different course I'd attended.

When Gillingham FC announced their pre-season fixture list, there was one tie that immediately stood out to me. It wasn't the Millwall or Watford home matches, nor the Southend away game that got the juices flowing but the game away to Woking! Why? It's a ground I've not visited before and has a parkrun right next door!

Parkrun tourism and number collecting, or whatever you want to call this nonsense past time of mine wouldn't exist if it wasn't for my football fandom. Following the Gills home and away has meant that I've ticked off a fair few football grounds on my travels and so the behaviour was already well established.

The challenge I had now had to overcome was a logistical one. If I'm done and dusted at Woking parkrun what do I do with myself until 3pm when the football kicks off?

One option was to take Hayden along with me to parkrun and make use of the leisure centre next door. We could go for a swim after the run where I can then have a shower and clean myself after the run. Alternatively I could drive home, get showered and changed and then drive back 60 miles to where I'd just come from. 240 miles isn't the greenest of options is it?

As it was, Reaso and George were available after originally thinking that they weren't. Which allowed me to drive to Woking and back in the morning and then go back again as a passenger with Reaso and George. Still not particularly environmentally friendly, but no difference if I was running at another venue in another part of the south east.

Woking parkrun is based at Woking park in the centre of the town and has a leisure centre right next door. I did have a nose on the leisure centre website and it looked to be a fairly decent one with good facilities including some flumes in  splash pool section of the site. Outside, there were various other facilities making up a really vital community resource for which parkrun was well suited.

I parked in the main car park which serves the leisure centre, football club and park itself. Parking for the first two hours is free, so later that afternoon we only had to pay for an hour to cover the football which was really good value for a main town centre location.

The course is a three lap route which starts at the bottom of the straight next to the leisure centre in the middle of the park. The straight forms part of an access road into the park and is around 100m in length. At the opposite end of the straight is a left hand turn where the finish sits. So after completing three laps you have a nice flat out straight to the end.

Each lap is the same and takes you around the perimeter of the park in a clockwork direction. The park isn't especially large and so to make up the required distance the route comes out of the park for a short stretch and takes in a woodland area before linking back up again with another route back into the park.

This area in and out of the course comprises of two short wooden footbridges which can accommodate two side by side but are laid out awkwardly on the course and are taken at sharp 90 degrees angles. This tight and twisty nature is a characteristic of the course making for a rather fragmented and technical challenge.

I finished in a time of 29:19 and was 195th out of a field of 331 participants.

Without checking my previous comments around three lap courses. I came to the conclusion at the end of this one that I rather like a three lap course. The first lap tends to fly by rather quickly and so your actually into the second lap before you know it. Any tiredness or fatigue on the second lap can then be batted away by saying you've only got one lap left. Of course then when you are on the last lap you've not actually got that far to go!