Grovelands parkrun - event 693

On the 8th February 2025 I ran the Grovelands parkrun which was the 693rd event held at the venue, my 223rd parkrun and 141st different course I'd attended.

Overall, running twice a week consistently for the past three to four years I've been incredibly fortunate with injuries considering my age and general health/weight. But after a few weeks off resting my calf it was perhaps inevitable that I'd pick up another niggle and that has proved to be the case.

For the past few days I've been having pain when standing from a sitting position on my right leg and haven't really been able to identify where abouts the pain has been coming from. Poking and prodding around the leg makes no difference as there is no pain anywhere, but as soon as I stand I end up hobbling into the first few steps before regaining a normal walking motion.

It's for that reason I persevered with parkrun and turned up again on Saturday morning as once I'm moving generally it feels okay.

So this week was the turn of another London venue, in my quest to visit all 65 parkruns in the Greater London region. Grovelands parkrun, just a stones throw from Oak Hill parkrun where my injury woes first started a few weeks ago.

I was joined this week by Mark who is trying to run 100k during the month and is trying to remain alcohol free. He couldn't partake in dry January as he had a house guest from Portugal staying during the month, so he postponed it with the added benefit that February only has 28 days!

We parked on the main road, Broad Walk that runs alongside the south east edge of the park and was fondly identify as Millionaires row on a Facebook post when I was doing my research. The post certainly was not wrong as the houses that line Broad Walk were certainly befitting of the mainson description. Oh how the other half live!

Grovelands park itself, like so many others features a lake at it centre and around it are rolling hills with pathways and various leisure facilities dotted around the perimeter. It was cold, overcast and miserable albeit dry on our visit so we didn't see the park at its best. But what we did see was enough to suggest it being a quite pleasant space to spend time in on brighter days.

The course is a two and three quarter lap affair, starting at one corner of the lake. At the bottom of the treelined pathway that leads from the lake to the top of the park is the start, which heads away from the lake, slightly further downhill to the north eastern edge of the park in an anti-clockwise direction.

The course then loops around in a wide circle rising uphill and all the way around again to the top of the hill and the treelined path. The uphill rise isn't particularly steep, but it's done three times so can be challenging on the third ascent, but putting effort in at this point of the course is richly rewarded as the second half of the lap is downhill to the southern end of the park and back around to the start

Being careful not to go off too fast I was conscious of my recent calf problems and the leg issue that I don't fully understand. The first part of the lap from the start goes from a quite wide path to a narrow path quite quickly and going onto the grass probably gives you more room to manoeuvre but with the weather conditions the grass areas were quite muddy and so I opted for the slow and patient approach which I felt worked well for me.

I finished in 142nd place out of a field of 225 participants in a time of 30:02. I'd completed my 45th venue in the Greater London region and am now just over 75% distance to completing the full set. Looking at my parkrun map with the completed events hidden from view shows the whole of North and East London completely baron and void of events. All being well and a few more injury free weekends I can complete the set.