Gunnersbury parkrun - event 655

On the 13th December 2025 I ran the Gunnersbury parkrun which was the 655th event held at the venue, my 265th parkrun and 182nd different course I'd attended.

2025 has been a year of methodically ticking off events around London in an attempt to complete and visit all parkruns across the region. The plan was almost complete, with just three more events to go. One more before Christmas, one in January and completion of all 63 in February of 2026.

But parkrun world is an ever changing beast and new events appear on an almost weekly basis. Despite there being parkrun events across almost every London borough there's always room for one more and so that has proved. Three weeks ago a new event popped up on the events map in Greenwich, just outside of the O2 arena. 63 became 64 and that elusive regional status became one step removed.

So what's the big deal? 

Well, normal people who haven't quite taking it to the extremes that I have aren't affected. They would just change their plans and visit the new event at Greenwich Peninsula a week before or a week after they'd planned to complete their final event.

But me, not being normal and taking it to the extreme has determined that they can't visit a parkrun event number that they'd ran at previously. And so having ran at event numbers 1 through to 59 I need to wait, at the earliest until Greenwich Peninsula is on its 59th event - at the earliest. Now there's only a possibility of doing 54 events in a calendar year, so the first time I'd be able to visit, under my own self-imposed nonsense would be in 2027...

Fortunately I had no such scruples on Saturday as I found myself in a rather chilly, but sunny and foggy west London. Excited and looking forward to run Gunnersbury parkrun.

Having had three Saturdays off running (one week with Stephanie recuperating from her operation and two weeks volunteering) it was great to be back.

Upon arrival at the car park I walked through the park admiring the foggy grounds as the low rising sun shone through it creating wonderful dark shadows which are always beautiful this time of year. Lots of photos were shared on social media after the event, clearly I wasn't the only one mesmerized by the weather.

Gunnersbury parkrun is a one lap route. An out-and-back with a lollypop at the end is probably the best way to describe it

Starting at the northern and highest edge of the park next to the football pitches, participants head off on the perimeter path in an anti-clockwise direction around the fields.

With over 500 participants it was.a busy event with lots of jostling for position for the first 500m or so. As the ground was damp and muddy people were reluctant to step on the grass alongside the paths in case they slipped as it was a little treacherous. As I hadn't ran for a while I was quite happy to take it steady and gradually made my way into some space where I was able to run my own pace.

Taking the perimeter path all the way to the bottom of the park, down a gradual gradient as you go and winding into the woodland section at the southern end of the park. This is the primary part of the out-and-back section which you repeat on your way back to the finish. What seemed a light gradient on the way out did seem a little steeper on the way back for sure!

The lollypop section of the course is a large internal loop of the park which follows again wide, firm tarmac paths. This section is quite interesting as it takes in various sections of the park from the leisure areas, play areas to ornamental lake and gardens. 

Elevation wise you would describe the course overall as flat, but there are little bobbles of ups and downs which are surface bumps really but on a flat course always feels worse than they are. The 5k app describes the course as slightly hilly, but I disagree with that. Each of course to their own.

I finished in 397th place out of a field of 613 participants in a time of 30:52. Not sure what happened with the result as I was given token 395 at the finish line. Sometimes little results anomalies do happen, but it's parkrun and nothing to lose sleep over, certainly when your middle of the road like I am.