Roding Valley parkrun - event 337

On the 9th November 2024 I ran the Roding Valley parkrun which was the 337th event held at the venue, my 210th parkrun and 131st different course I'd attended.

Just like Kent, Essex has a series of parkruns that are no longer part of Essex and are now a part of Greater London. So depending on who you speak to there are either 32 parkrun events to complete the set, or 24. 

For me, I'm treating Kent and Essex the same. In that I'm aiming to complete all the events in the county and any that are now under Greater London, tick them off under that jurisdiction instead.

So the goal on Saturday was to reach the halfway point of the Essex parkrun odyssey and tick off the twelfth venue in the county. 

My friend Mark accompanied me along the A13 and M11 where we parked up as instructed on the Roding Valley parkrun website. Two minutes later a car pulled up alongside me and cousin Nick appeared with his wife Jenny. Talk about punctual!

After last week's meet up at Wimpole Estate we made plans to do it all over again the following week except we would make a day of it. After the run Nick would follow us back home to Kent, take a shower at my house before heading down to Rochester for a beer or two and lunch followed by Gillingham Vs Port Vale. Despite being in his 50's he'd never stepped foot in Priestfield before and now was a good a time as any! (We ended up winning 1-0 and the jury is out on whether he'll be back any time soon!)

Roding Valley parkrun takes place on Roding Recreation ground and consists of a two-lap course of equal length and is ran in a clockwise direction.

Starting in the north-west quadrant of the park behind the tennis courts the route starts on grass and runs north to the northern edge of the park. Participants then turn right onto a concrete path and follow it around the perimeter of the park where it weaves from one field to another. 

The path under foot isn't in especially good condition and is quite narrow. Participants don't have to run on the path, choosing if they wish to run on the grass alongside it. But I decided to try and make as much of the path as possible. The course is approximately half and half grass Vs path and the grass was fairly long which felt quite energy sapping on the legs, despite it being virtuaopancake flat the whole way around.

There are a couple of bridges that cross over a stream that bisects the park into two. These weren't too slippery when we visited, but we were warned to be cautious as they can get slippery if the conditions are wer. We were lucky that although grey and cold, it hasn't raines and so the ground was still firm underfoot. I can imagine parts of the course getting fairly muddy in places and making it even tougher on the legs.

Eventually after circumnavigating a football pitch and cutting across another part of the part the route comes back around the rear of the tennis courts and the lap is repeated again for the second time.

I finished in 105th place out of a field of 154 participants in a time of 30:04. I normally finish around half way in the total number of attendees, so finished slightly lower down the pecking order this week. Not sure if that's to do with a vast number of speedier runners or whether I ran slower than normal. It definitely didn't feel like it was through a lack of effort but we all agreed at the end that the course was a lot trickier than we were expecting it be.

12 down though, 12 more to go! Half way to all the events in Essex!