Maidstone River Park parkrun - event 593

On the 25th December 2025 I ran the Maidstone River Park parkrun which was the 593rd event held at the venue, my 267th parkrun and the second time I'd visited the event.

In recent years it has been a new tradition to attend parkrun on Christmas Day to get the festivities under way. This is normally attended at Great Lines, but as I'd racked up a list of 99 different parkrun events without repeat I had to find somewhere else to keep the run going and hit the centenary figure.

We may have an abundance of parkrun venues close by to Gravesend, but not everyone runs a Christmas Day event and so the pickings were a few far and between. I had to also consider that it wasn't Great Lines that would upset my tourist streak, Dartford, Bexley and Leybourne Lakes would also see my streak reset.

Fortunately Maidstone River Park were running, and as I hadn't visited the event since 2022 my tourist streak was well protected. It was also a venue that I hadn't blogged about before, so it was an opportunity to correct that as well.

On my first visit the event was simply called 'Maidstone', but with Mote Park joining the roster of events it made sense to nip any ambiguity in the bud. Maidstone River Park clearly positions itself at its location which, as the name suggests is on the river.

The standard course begins and ends at the Museum of Kent Life, on the banks of the river Medway, just upstream of Allington locks behind the Malta Inn. Most of us native to North Kent will have had a drink or paid the Malta Inn a visit at least once in our lives, and I have fond memories from childhood visits with my Grandparents.

From the start at Kent Life, the course runs downhill to the river and starts to follow the river path upstrean towards Maidstone Town centre. After traversing a scenic route along the river the course eventually meets a bridge which takes participants up and over the river into What man park where the U-turn in the standard out-and-back course resides.

The course then retraces it's steps all the way to Kent Life where the finish lies a little deeper into the complex, at the end of a rather evil short, sharp hill.

As it.was Christmas Day, Kent Life was closed for access and so they were running their alternative course. This was great news to me as it meant no evil hill at the end, and it also meant that I had ran the same event twice with different routes each time. Something I think of a first.

On Christmas Day the course started and ended almost outside of the Malta Inn and remained as an out-and-back, but the different starting and finishing places meant the course needed to evolve further upstream.

Crossing the same blue bridge across the river into What man park, rather than coming virtually back straight away the course ran though the central path of the park and out on the other bridge at the top end of the park.

This bridge brings you out behind the Gallagher Stadium, home of Maidstone United and offered great views across the stadium itself. The bridge pathway then leads down from its elevated position and participants then reach the river path again and follow it back downstream to the finish.

One thing that I hadn't quite remembered from my first visit was quite how bouncy the first bridge across the river was. I might have still been feeling delicate from the night before, but running across it gave me a mild dose of seasickness and was quite the unpleasant experience. Bouncing along running whilst also bouncing on the bridge that was moving to the rhythm of an assortment of runners isn't something I'd look forward to doing on a weekly basis!

I finished in 320th place out of a field of 585 participants in a time of 31:37.

As expected the time wasnt quite as fast as my first visit where I ran in 30:11. Although it wasn't as slow as I thought it was going to be. The course is very narrow, and starting on the river bank didn't give much opportunity to spread the field out, so I found myself walking for the first 200m or so. It was the largest ever attendance at the venue on that day and so congestion was a real problem. 

Alternative courses are also slightly longer by design as the idea is that you don't want to set your PB on an alternative course that you can't beat on a standard route.

Either way, it's another venue in Kent that I've revisited and accepting the congestion as a course feature, it's another course that does Kent proud for it's scenic nature.

Now for the next 100!