Stretford parkrun - event 448

Stretford parkrun

On the 11th April 2026 I ran the Stretford parkrun which was the 448th event held at the venue, my 284th parkrun and 197th different course I'd attended.

Salford City vs Gillingham might not be the most glamorous of football fixtures, but Hayden and I have attended every historic fixture between the two teams - all 8 of them. The away games in Manchester have given me.the opportunity to tick off a few of the cities parkrun venues at the same time.

In recent years we've visited Heaton Park, Alexandra and now this time around we chose to visit Stratford. Joining us again this weekend was Henry, Hayden's friend who had enjoyed weekends with us at Morecambe and Port Vale and is infinitely more enthusiastic about partaking in parkrun than Hayden is. It was with Henry and Hayden in mind that I chose Stretford over one of the other Manchester venues as it has an additional novelty factor - part of the course takes part on an athletics track.

Majority of the course takes part around two laps of Longford Park. But the first 600 metres and final 200 meters takes place on the running track at Trafford Athletics club.

We arrived to a miserable and wet Manchester morning and took brief shelter in the stand that sits next to the main 100m straight of the stadium. It's the only stand in the facility, but only small, but it was tempting enough for Hayden to determine that he wasn't to okay any part in the mornings athletics and was to play the role of a parkrun ultra instead.

Starting where the 100m would start in the top left hand side of the running track, participants run a lap and a half before exciting the complex through a side gate at the bottom of the facility.

The exit leads ever so briefly into a car park that immediately joins the main path into Longford Park. 

They've certainly managed to pack in a lot around a lap of Longford park, including an out and back section along the main avenue of the park, a view of multiple children's play areas, pets corner and a disk golf course. Being Saturday there was also junior football teams training on the larger fields providing plenty of kinetic energy to the route.

The end of each lap sweeps around the back of the main stand of the athletics stadium. I tried to listen out for Hayden singing 'who are ya, who are ya', but didn't hear owt. At the end of the first lap the course turns right, back into the park from the carpark where the second lap is taken on. At the end of the second lap the course turns left, into the car park before turning immediately left again and onto the athletics track.

Obviously the athletics track is pancake flat, but so to was the route through Longford Park. In fact I don't think I've ever seen a flatter elevation profile in strava before and that includes plenty of seaside course along promenades. The tarmac paths for the full duration also help and aid fast times around the course. The only thing preventing a PB is the tight and twisty nature of the course, particularly on the first lap of the course.

Finishing parkrun tends to often involve a sprint finish. But when finishing on an athletics track it feels almost mandatory. With people in and around me as I approached the finish line it felt that we were almost obliged to go all out and try and finish ahead of one another which made for some quite funny exchanges as we made our way through the finish funnel.

I finished in 455th place out of a field of 626 participants in a time of 30:47.


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