Volksgarten parkrun - event 201

On the 5th October 2024 I ran the Volksgarten parkrun which was the 201st event held at the venue, my 205th parkrun and 126th different course I'd attended.

After our day touristing in Cologne we head south of the city for a day at Phantasialand, one of the very many German theme parks in the country and arguably one of the very best of it's kind anywhere in the world.

We had a great day and enjoyed as many of the rides and attractions as we could. Truth be told, a two day visit would have been better, but when you have only a single day there you have to make the most of it which we did.

Highlights included Taron and FLY, the latter being a launched flying coaster where you are laying down and literally in the flying position. Both coasters were ridiculously long and seemed to go on forever which was a refreshing change from similar attractions at Alton Towers and Thorpe Park where you come off things feeling rather short changed.

Stephanie continued to feel the effects of old age and her bravery has started to desert her slightly so she quite happily stood on the sidelines and watched on a couple of occasions. But blamed me entirely when she got an absolute soaking on the rapids ride as apparently I knew how wet she'd get and I'd failed to warn her... 

So onto Saturday morning and another parkrun day. With all the options available to us within driving distance and potential things to see and do after the run it was a quite tricky choice. There was the option of heading back into Cologne and running the cities other event. We also had the option of running another Dutch event as was our proximity to the country, but we were in Germany so it didn't feel right to do that.

Instead I chose Volksgarten in Düsseldorf as we were then able to spend a second day touristing our way around another German city.

We awoke to bright cloud free skies and the promise of a great weather day. However the morning's in Germao were cold! Like, skipping autumn and going straight into winter cold! Oliver got himself dressed and emerged from his Airbnb bedroom dressed in shorts, which he regretted as soon as he stepped outside. Fortunately the day warmed up significantly and the rest of us ended up looking at Oliver enviously but he did have to suffer for a bit in the morning!

Following our trusty Google Maps we arrived at our parking spot inside the Volksgarten parkrun on the east of the city. We had to cross part of the course to get to the spot and so I had to carefully manoeuvre the car around the cones which were laid out and I was really nervous about flattening one of them and ruining their equipment.

Whilst not as busy as the Unity Day events, there were evidently still a lot of Brits about and like me trying to find a spot at the briefings that lay in the path of the sun to try and keep warm. In the shade it felt bitterly cold, but stood in front of the sun there was definitely heat to be found and we all made the most of it.

Volksgarten parkrun is two laps of the park which is ran in a clockwise direction. Starting at the wide pathway alongside the flat expanse of grass at the northeastern part of the park, participants head east around a route which contains a variety of different surfaces underfoot and takes you around a varied course that is interesting and epitomises what a traditional parkrun course should be - a run, around a park.

As I'd ran two days previously and had walked another 40 odd thousand steps since then I wasn't particularly fast, but I was fairly determined. Stephanie actually paid a bit of attention this time and managed to get some photos of me in a room, although in all honesty wish she hadn't because I make for awful running pictures! But despite the pain and effort, I really enjoyed running around the Volksgarten parkrun course as it's variation made it really quite interesting and engaging.

I finished in 68th position out of a field of 119 participants in a time of 29:01. The 01 part was a massive frustration for me as it was one second away from completing 'stopwatch bingo', which is where you have to collect a finishing time that ends with all the possible numbers from 00-60. I've been waiting for 1 more number for what seems like the longest time and a trip to Germany would have been the best place to achieve it. Such is luck!

Once the run was finished we head into Dusseldorf itself, parking alongside the river and hunted down some breakfast. We passed a bar on the riverside called the 'Three Little Birds', and ate breakfast at 'Birdies &.Co'. 

Naturally we felt quite at home in Düsseldorf and had another lovely day making memories in a place that we would never have visited in our lifetimes had it not been for a crazy addiction to parkrun.