Wakehurst parkrun - event 20

On the 31st August 2024 I ran the Wakehurst parkrun which was the 20th event held at the venue, my 199th parkrun and 121st different course I'd attended.

I'd never heard of Wakehurst Place until earlier this year when a new parkrun popped up on social media. Since then, every week it pops up as the latest new venue that parkrun tourists have visited and have shared their experience of the event on Facebook. But I had to wait patiently to record my own visit and then when I finally came to enjoy it for myself I barely paid it any notice.

Whenever a new event pops up it gives me an opportunity to fill one of my gaps in my Wilson Index. Which explained before on these pages is the visit of a parkrun event in continued numeric order. I'd previously visited parkruns that were numbered 1 to 19. I've also visited a number 21 and numbers 23 through to 32. So gaps where 20, 22 and 33 should be. Eventually I'd like have a Wilson Index of 100, but I'm still some way off that and eventually the number of new events starting will diminish - rendering that goal virtually impossible.

As 19 weeks of previous social media exposure had told me, Wakehurst Place is a beautiful place to visit and parkrunners are privileged to be able to run around the grounds of a Saturday morning.

Normally I like to arrive half hour early before an event starts and take photos of the course to share on social media. But during the week Oasis announced a reunion tour and unforgivably released tickets at 9am on Saturday morning.

Stephanie and Hayden had also joined me this week as Stephanie was meeting her friend Jenny who lives close by and who has met us on a couple of occasions along this parkrun odyssey. With the arrival, meeting of Jenny and the greetings/welcome plus fighting gremlins with the Ticketmaster app on my phone I just wasn't able to focus, or take in either my surroundings or any of the pre-run formalities.

Before I realised it was a 3,2,1 and we were off, albeit very slowly. Evidently there weren't very many other Oasis fans in the parkrun world on Saturday morning as the number of participants seemed to be rather healthy. A popular attended event coupled with tight winding paths meant that the start was very congested and not much running was done over the first 100 meters or so.

Starting at the cafe near the stables the course runs two laps around the gardens of Wakehurst Place in a clockwise direction. Parking and entry is free for parkrun attendees and entry is granted until 11am. I believe the price is normally quite high for a normal tourist visit, so make the most of the time you get as a parkrun visitor!

From the start the course heads around on reasonably wide paths, but with trees and bushes either side of the pathways it's difficult to overtake, coupled with the general number of attendees it does make for a busy start. Self-seeding is highly encouraged and generally people were in the right place, although I did nearly completely clatter into a woman who had bent over to do a shoelace and haven't ever come as close to a collision as I had then!

Getting away for me wasn't in the forefront of my mind as I was still fighting with Ticketmaster, but after the course had wound its way up a short hill and back down again the spaces started to open up and I gave Ticketmaster a few choice words and put the phone back in my pocket.

The course meanders across the full 2.5k distance of the lap. After the first small hill the course flattens out a bit, going this way and that all on fine surfaced paths. The surroundings are spectacular visually as you pass all kinds of greenery and plantlife, none of which I could tell you what they were. But as the air was damp with the previous nights rain the smells matched the visuals given you a full on sensory experience.

The run quite quickly became secondary to the surroundings like all good parkruns do. I always say that I hate running, but that's not always true. When running within such a scenic environment you forget what you are there for and everything just becomes one beautiful distraction.

Halfway around the lap the course descends downhill through a rather fun sequence of corners which I tried to treat as a little bit of a race circuit trying to follow an imaginary racing line. This part of the course was darker, with the trees more dense and a canopy overhead in places.

The next part of the lap was uphill, but unlike the downhill which was one long sequence the route up was made up of various ascents of different lengths and gradients, separated by flat sections in-between. This meant that the course was a lot less challenging than it could have been as each hill in turn was achievable without having to face one huge slog uphill in one go.

Lastly, once back to the top of the course you run through more formal gardens with manicured lawns past Wakehurst house itself which is currently covered by scaffolding as restoration works are currently taking place. This leads back around to the start/finish area after a couple of final tight and twisty corners.

Of course once completed for the first time you go around once more for the second lap where the uphill parts have gotten twice as long and three times as steep!

I finished in 177th position out of a field of 341 participants in a time of 30:53. Once I'd had my barcode scanned I went to find Stephanie, Hayden and Jenny who were all sat outside the nearby cafe. Stephanie had persevered with Ticketmaster and was at the back of an impossibly long virtual queue. 

But rather than spending time enjoying the company of Jenny and further exploring our wonderful surroundings we had to race back to the car and home. As part of the new television deal this season each club will feature on Sky Sports a number of times. Gillingham's game against Chesterfield has been chosen as the early kick-off so I had to be home and showered and at Priestfield in time for kick-off.

It feels almost criminal to have been to Wakehurst whilst half ignoring it and not paying it the full attention it deserves. But its another venue that I've visited within the context of an original narrative which is what these posts try to convey. Should I go back again and I'd really love to, because it is a quite outstanding place to run. Then hopefully I'll have whole new story to tell.