Gladstone parkrun - event 601

Gladstone parkrun

On the 12th April 2025 I ran the Gladstone parkrun which was the 601st event held at the venue, my 232nd parkrun and 150th different course I'd attended.

In social media groups discussing parkrun adventures there's frequently tales of parkrunners who have bumped into someone famous on their weekly timed walk, jog or run.

'Famous' can mean lots of different things these days and so those celebrities can range from anyone, like Paul Sinton-Hewitt, the founder of parkrun to Joe Wilkinson the comedian, Gillingham FC fan and occasional parkrun participant.

I even ran an event once where Dame Kelly Holmes was present and hadn't even realised until I'd read about it later on social media. So you can forgive me for feeling a little excited when I arrived at Gladstone parkrun and immediately spotted Olympic legend Ellie Simmons!

She was attending her first parkrun event as an ambassador of parkrun to help further promote the parkwalk initiative which aims to encourage further participation by appealing to walkers as well as runners in a quest to be more accessible - very noble aims indeed.

I was attending Gladstone in my ongoing quest to run all of the London parkrun venues, of which Gladstone was event number 52 out of 65.

Based in north west London, a stones throw from Wembley stadium Gladstone park is a park of two halves. Separated by a railway line the parkrun venue starts and ends on the south east side of the park, but the majority of the course takes part on the northern section.

Starting from the wide pathway near to the pavillion building, runners head towards the bridge that leads into the bigger area of the park on the northern side of the railway line. Having Ellie Simmons attend the event and the publicity she brought we had the extra novelty of a blow-up start line. Similar to bigger, more official running events there was a parkrun branded inflatable which we ran through and made our merry way along.

The bridge over the other side of the park was a bit of a pinch point as not only does the path narrow at this point, we were marshalled over to one side of the path in order to allow other park users right of way.

Once into the northern part of the park the route widens out again and follows the edge of the park uphill to the highest part of the course.

Whilst this part may well be uphill, it's a fairly manageable slog which drags uphill and steepens towards the top. Once the summit has been reached participants turn left and follow a winding, meandering route which dips up and down a couple of times all the way across to the far western end of the park.

This section is actually quite good fun as the downward momentum gives sufficient energy to get back up the inclines of which I think there are three in all. At the far end of the park the route turns left again, continuing anti-clockwise downhill back towards the railway line that bisects the park into two.

Looking at the course map, it appears that the course is a figure of 8 shape. The course doesn't cross over one another, but instead meets in the middle with the two paths 'kissing' each other in the middle. This makes for quite an interactive course being able to see and high five other runners in their various positions around the route.

Making it's way around the park the course joins up with the junction next to the railway bridge back to the southern side. After the first lap, the second lap is started by turning left and heading back up hill via the avenue of trees. After the second lap the route heads back over the bridge, which is much clearer at this time and follows the route back to the start where the finish now lies in place.

I finished in 181st place out of a field of 309 participants in a time of 30.34.

Based on the undulating nature of the course and the fact that I'd just spent two weeks walking (very slowly) around parkrun courses with Hayden it was quite a respectable time all things considered. It was also the most comfortable I'd felt with my leg, so having some rest definitely did more good than perhaps I'd care to admit...

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