Cranleigh parkrun - event 452

On the 14th March 2026 I ran the Cranleigh parkrun which was the 452nd event held at the venue, my 280th parkrun and 193rd different course I'd attended.

The more weeks I visit new parkruns the harder it is to find a new parkrun and the further distance I have to travel. Having only got 1 more event to visit in London, 1 more in Kent and a small handful left of Essex parkrun choices are coming harder to rationalise.

My goal is to ultimately visit all events that comprise the Greater London, East of England and South East England regions. This would be around 300 different venues in total and an amount that would take 6 years to complete if attempted in full. But with Gillingham away games providing opportunities to visit other regions and life getting in the way then that should be plenty to keep me going.

Next on the list for me this week was Cranleigh in Surrey, 8 miles south of Guildford and often referred to as the largest village in the UK. It's parkrun venue is situated at Knowle Park which lies on the outskirts of the village.

The park has recently undergone some significant redevelopment and was closed to parkrun for several months as the works took place.

The meeting point is at the side of the lake by the carpark and overlooks the lake below. On a bright sunny Spring morning in March the lake looked glorious framed with trees and bushes and other vegetation that makes up the country park.

There was a unique element which I hadn't seen before. Three wooden shirts painted in the parkrun milestone colours were staked into the ground allowing those who were celebrating milestone on the day to have a photo opportunity with them and a place to write their name against the lettering to signify the weekly achievement.

I was joined again this week by Mark, as Foordy had to work. Mark, let's just say had better mornings. An early family mother's day celebration went long into the night and so he was feeling rather delicate and worse for wear.

Nevertheless he made it and had to endure the punishing course just as much as the rest of us!

Cranleigh parkrun comprises of two laps and each lap is made up of two halves. The first is a mostly compacted gravel trail winding around the park, taking in part of the lake and the outskirts of the park which skirts a neighboring housing estate that looked like would cost a few pounds if you wanted to live there.

The second part of the course is off road and comprises following the perimeter of a neighbouring field which is nestled quite picturesquely on the side of a hill.

As the weather hadn't quite been warm enough for long enough meant that the field was still quite muddy in places. My trail shoes laces have broken and need replacing and until I do are having to make do with road shoes, which were clearly not the right type. I struggled with grip and couldn't get any traction whilst running up hill.

My battle with hilly courses is well documented and I was determined to see how far I could go this morning but with grip being such an issue I couldn't really give it a fair go. Instead I had to walk and take it gingerly upwards to the top of the hill where great views of the Surrey hillw could be appreciated.

Once the summit had been reached the course dips down quite sharply back into the park below where on the first lap the course carries on further into the park for lap two and on the second turn the course cuts across the field again to the finish.

The finishing sequence across the field really was quite something. Still fairly saturated from earlier rain during the week the last 300m was a quagmire of mud and puddles. I had more grip by running through.the mud that trying to run and slip alongside it, so I bounded through it with the enthusiasm of an excited puppy.

My legs and shoes were covered in the finest Surrey clay and I made a complete mess of myself but had a huge smile on my face. Mark as I found later wasn't quite so enthusiastic and ranted at the poor volunteer who scanned his barcode on the merits of course safety, or the lack of in this case.

I finished in 130th place out of a field of 176 participants in a time of 33:06.

After the event, at home later in the day looking at photos taken from the morning on social media I discovered that Paul Sinton-Hewitt was a volunteer that day. Paul, if you don't know was the gentleman who started parkrun over 20 years ago at Bushy park and without whom my Saturday mornings would be entirely different.

Once I shared this information with Mark he wrote back that this was the same person he'd ranted at earlier on with regards to the mud and how unsafe the course was!