Wanstead Flats parkrun - event 648

On the 16th November 2024 I ran the Wantstead Flats parkrun which was the 648th event held at the venue, my 211th parkrun and 132nd different course I'd attended.

Last week after Roding Valley parkrun I had a discussion with a member of the parkrun tourism group on Facebook who told me of the eight additional events that made up the full Total PIED challenge, which is all of the Essex venues plus those that are now part of Greater London, or the historical part of Essex.

Of those eight, I had one left to visit - Wanstead Flats, and it just so happened that I'd pencilled this in the diary for this week coming!

I was joined once again by Mark who was available, but had to be home promptly afterwards for a pre-Christmas day out with the family. I assured him that everything would be fine and I'd have him home all in good time.

Following instructions from the event website we parked up at the carpark, which is around 1km away from the start. Wanstead Flats and surrounding grounds are actually quite vast and they could quite easily run several different events in the space if there were enough participants and willing volunteers to do so.

The walk to the start did fill Mark with a little bit of anxiety, that we'd take forever to get there and therefore it would take forever to get back. But we were there within ten minutes and much to his frustration found a closer, smaller car park with ample space for one more car!

These are all lessons we learn and no doubt had I attempted to park there it would have been full and we'd have had to have parked elsewhere. But anyhow, we made our way to the meeting point which is at the Harrow Row pavilion on the east side of the flats.

The course is a two lap affair and ran in a clockwise direction. From the start participants run around the perimeter of the field around the edges of a football pitch. In fact the first and last part of the lap reminded me very much of nearby Hackney Marshes parkrun with all the football pitches marked out side by side.

Soon the path gives way to trail and the track starts to run through a line of trees heading into what is part of Epping Forest.

This next part of the lap is taken on trail paths through the woods and on the first lapmwas quite congested. Mark complained that he couldn't see very well and nearly tripped over a couple of times on some exposed tree routes where I didn't quite have the same problem.

After a loop through the woods the course heads back upon itself and eventually veers off back onto the field with the football pitches to finish the last part of the lap.

Looking at the course from the course map or Strava the route looks like a figure of eightz which it roughly is. The small top part of the eight is through the woods and the bottom part is around the football pitches on grass.

The course was, as the name suggests. Almost perfectly flat although there was a section through the woods that definitely felt downhill. The elevation chart on Strava highlighted this, but it is minuscule really.

Once the first lap is completed, the second lap is a carbon copy of the first with the finish funnel in the same place as the start.

I finished in 165th place out of a field of 281 participants in a time of 29:33.

After the run, we head back to the car and made good time. Mark had a deadline of 10:45 he needed to be home by and the sat nav had us back well before then.

But as we were coming over the Dartford Bridge we could see the traffic being stopped a short way into the distance and so we had to make a detour via Greenwich and Bluewater getting us back with just 5 minutes to spare.

It could have been a lot worse, had we been five minutes further back up the road we'd have been stuck in traffic and Mark would have been well within his rights to strangle me! But we got away with it, just! 

Another Saturday parkrun day!