Great Dunmow parkrun - event 303

On the 27th December 2025 I ran the Great Dunmow parkrun which was the 303rd event held at the venue, my 268th parkrun and 184th different course I'd attended.

2025 has been another year of remarkable parkrun activities. I missed three weekends, one where I was injured and twice through supporting Stephanie through her Gall Stone problems.

Its not lost on me that although I supported her for two weekends out of 52, without her support in letting me do my thing I literally wouldn't be able to do what I do. Her selflessness in taking the children to their clubs on a Saturday morning means she too has an early start to her weekend and in my mine, not nearly as an enjoyable one. But she does meet her sister for breakfast at a local cafe for a weekly catch-up so it's not all parental duty.

Of all those weeks attendance in 2025, I never repeated a week at the same venue, but I did manage to revisit three events, including another visit to my 'home' parkrun at Cyclopark, albeit in a volunteering capacity.

But my last event of the year was another return to Essex in my quest to visit all of the parkrun events in the county. Like London, as I approach touching distance of completing the set, a brand new event pops up to add another to the list. Essex too has another venue recently added in Chelmsford which brings the complete number of events up to 25, my goal being extended in this process.

Never the less, I headed through the Dartford Tunnel, feeling the effects of contracting Stephanie's virus, the one that had ruined her previous weekend in Blackpool. If I could have stayed in bedz I would have, but it was the last run of the year and my obsession slightly forced my hand.

I followed the parking instructions as per the event website and found myself at a leisure centre miles away from the venue. It's a good job I arrived with plenty of time to spare, as I needed it. Walking a good ten/fifteen minutes along to where the park was located on the opposite side of the road. Something to consider for anyone else looking to attend the event.

From the start the course doesn't reveal itself at all very easily. The start is located in the corner of a playing field, surrounded by trees. The field was on a slant and so running around it would mean to flat sides and a downhill and uphill either side.

Listening to the first timers brief it was clear to me that it was just going to be one of those courses. The ones that when you try to explain them, you're left confused. But when you've run it, it all makes sense and is nowhere as confusing as it sounds.

In short the course is two laps, the first navigating a full lap of the first field, where as the second takes in only three sides and cuts through the tree line at the bottom to join the rest of the lap.

The starter field isn't particularly large, and only covers (at a guess) 400/500m per lap. The rest and majority of the lap is taken beyond the tree line and takes in majority of the green space that makes up Great Dunmow parkrun and recreation space.

Aside from the starting field, which resembles a standard park, the rest of the route is based on trail paths and runs through a mixture of rough grassland, shrubland, woods and grazing areas. At two points along the route the course crosses a river across single width bridges which was quite good fun.

With glorious sunshine, but bitterly cold the event had that beautiful winter sun feel, where everything was bright and beautiful, the sun low down in your eyes, but icy underfloor. Despite the varying terrain levels and aside from some very minor undulations, including the starting field is classify the course as being flat.

As I was feeling the effects of a sore.throat, cough and blocked nose I didn't do too bad considering. I completed the first lap, but the second was a lap top far and I walked/jogged my way around towards the finish.

I finished in 75th place out of.a field of 106 participants in a time of 32:39.

Concluding the event would have seen me complete my 20th event with 4 more to go. But with the recently added event in Chelmsford, that leaves me instead with 5. Which is fine with me as it's another one not too far from home and as far as I'm concerned the more the better!