Rheinpark parkrun - event 158

On the 3rd October 2024 I ran the Rheinpark parkrun which was the 158th event held at the venue, my 204th parkrun and 125th different course I'd attended.

Every parkrun country is allowed to host a one off parkrun on a non-saturday as a 'special event day'. The UK uses theirs on Christmas Day, the US on thanksgiving and Germany on Unity Day which is their national holiday which takes place every year on October 3rd.

Earlier this year we planned a short family break. The plan was to spend the weekend in Holland and to run two parkruns, including their special event either side of some touristing and visits to some European theme parks. However, those plans were ruined when we realised two days before we were due to leave that Oliver and Phoebe's passports lacked sufficient validity for them to travel. We did as any responsible parents would do and went without them.

As part of the compensation package agreed with Oliver and Phoebe I suggested that we would book another trip later on in the year, but to Germany where we would attend two parkruns, attend two theme parks and take part on other touristing activities. It wasn't quite the level of compensation that they were looking for, but it was our most affordable and fairest offer on the table.

Now that we'd agreed, we needed a plan and so I hit the internet and started to put the puzzle together.

I knew that we'd need to stay in West Germany, as close to the borders of Holland and Belgium for accessibility purposes in order to ensure we didn't need to drive too far to get to wherever we were planning on going. On the north west side of Germany you have a cluster of cities in close proximity to one another; Cologne, Bonn, Duisburg, Dusseldorf and Monchengladbach all within easy access of one another. I also knew that there were various parkrun locations and Phantasialand was also in the near vicinity.

Eventually, after some research, planning and confirmation of which parkruns were running on Unity Day, we had a plan.

We'd travel on Wednesday to Germany, stopping off in Brussels to visit the Atomium and Design Museum. We'd head to Cologne the following day for Rheinpark parkrun and a touristing day followed by a day at Phantasialand. The following day would be touristing Dusseldorf where we'd also visit Volksgarten parkrun, before travelling home to the UK on Sunday via Bobbejaanland, a theme park in Belgium.

Our accommodation was an Airbnb style apartment in a town called Erkelenz - 45 minutes from Cologne. We arrived on Wednesday evening after stopping off in Brussels for what was an interesting afternoon and walked to an Italian restaurant we found on Google Maps. 

If you do ever find yourself in Brussels, I'd recommend a visit to the Atomium, which was built in 1958 when the country hosted the first post-war World Fair. Visitors get to explore the full structure including a lift to the very top which offers 360 degrees panoramic views of Brussels and beyond.

The Italian restaurant we visited on our first night was small, dark and intimate but we were fortunate to get the last table. I had to take photos of each page of the menu and use Google Lens to translate the content. It worked really well as we enjoyed a fine meal and had no issues with rogue ingredients that were lost in translation.

As part of my research for the trip I carefully scoured Google Maps and saved all of the key locations in a designated list. So in the.morning we could wake up and drive straight to the parking spot I'd found on the banks of the River Rhine along the river slightly from where the parkrun was due to take place.

Driving was absolutely no problem, and as it was a bank holiday the roads were clear and made everything a lot more simpler than it might of been. But what Google Maps can't provide for you from it's bird-eye perspective is the views in reality.

From our parking spot we had a wonderful view across the river to the majestic Cologne cathedral, the old town in the background and the Moulin Rouge theatre that was right on the banks of the northern shore opposite.

Parkrun special days are incredibly well supported. Not entirely by the locals, but you can always guarantee a good British contingent and that was evidently the case again this morning. From arriving at the car park we had runners adorned in parkrun t-shirts jogging by us and as we arrived at the meeting point there was already a large gathering of people and a nice orderly queue forming of people having their photographs taken with the purple pop up sign.

One of the many beauties of parkrun is it's familiarity and uniformity. No matter where you do a parkrun you'll have your welcome meeting for first timers at the event (and/or to parkrun), followed by the more specific run briefing before the event gets underway. 

But one addition this particular event made, which was specifically done to mark the occasion was to gather all the participants together for a big 'team' photograph. 224 people, plus volunteers all joined in together the mark the largest attendance the event had ever hosted. Which for context was 200 extra on the 24 that turned up at the previous event on the Saturday before!

After all the formalities and celebrations had concluded we walked east along the river to the starting point which is held on the main path of the park and was nice and wide, accommodating us all perfectly. We all lined up, making and about turn facing the way that we came all ready to get underway 

The course is a one lap affair ran in an anti-clockwise direction. Running west to east along the river the route takes a wide and winding route around the main park space across a variety of different paths and surfaces. In the main, the route underfoot was tarmac, but there's were area of cobble paths, flat compacted paths and narrow winding paths on compacted earth which added a nice variety.

Once the main route around the park had been completed the course takes a diversion out of the park into the neighboring harbour complex. You leave the park via a short incline, turn left through what appeared to be a carpark with auxiliary buildings alongside. You then head down a short hill onto a compacted gravel path which runs alongside a dock of sorts which had several industrial looking vessels moored up to.

This part of the course is an out-and-back and the path underfoot was potholed, full of puddles and running meant weaving in and around them unless you were happy to get wet and plough straight through. This section was actually quite nice despite the surface due to being out in the open under a bright blue sky and the rising sun.

The morning had started off very chilly indeed and came as a little bit of a shock. It definitely felt like autumn in the air and so this stretch of the course was a nice little sun trap.

Once you reach the turnaround point, participants retrace their steps back to the end of the path, up the ramp, through the carpark and down the short hill back into the park. The last leg of the course is back on the main start straight and feels slightly downhill. So with a much better tarmac surface to run on and wide open space it almost encourages you to take on that grandstand finish.

I finished in 91st position out of a field of 224 in a time of 28:19. Despite traveling with Stephanie and the kids I couldn't persuade anyone else to join in with me. Which is just as well really as a we ended up the rest of that day totting up nearly 25k steps exploring not just a great parkrun but a wonderful city we'd never been to before.

And thanks to parkrun one that we'd likely have never visited.