Harrow Lodge parkrun (not in Harrow)

This past weekend had been earmarked as a tourist trip with Branka, and Dad was also keen to come along, and so after looking at a few of our nearest (it’s all relative) options, we decided to head to Harrow Lodge parkrun, in Hornchurch. Confusingly, there is actually a Harrow parkrun, in Harrow, which I have been to with the OH ladies, so if you are going there make sure you check the correct course page! A fellow With Me Now listener and parkrun friend Rory is on the core team there, so it was good to know that we could meet up with him too.

We had a bit of a staged transport operation as my brother had also decided to come, with Branka driving to me and then me driving from there, my Dad picking up my brother and driving to Cheshunt, and then we picked them up and travelled most of the way together. There was lots of car parking available at the leisure centre (and toilets), and Rory very helpfully sent a little video showing which direction to walk once parked (aim towards the tall buildings). It’s a bit more than half a mile through the park, and although the route goes past that car park, we didn’t see any parkrun route signs as we walked, so we were relieved to see some high viz jackets as we got closer to the bottom of the park.

Pop up photos taken after- in the background you can see a small car park but that was full and the official course page asks you to use the leisure centre. We had to get a photo of the two of us for our new “three peas in a parkrun” insta page that we have created for Branka, Holly and I.

As we got there, they had just started the first timers welcome, but as it was one lap (hooray!) it was really a case of following the person in front for us (the first two finishers were first timers here though). We were reminded that there were lots of dogs in the park, but according to the volunteer, they were all friendly and we could stroke a dog on our way around if we wished (which seemed a little bit of a strange comment) and then we were on to the main briefing. It was concise and clear, and then the timers counted us off.

The run was really enjoyable with so much variety to run past- a few football pitches and that sort of thing, but also wilder scrubland, small wooded areas and some lovely shady patches. I really liked their direction signs, which seemed to be permanent, and showed the direction you had to go by the way the arrow curved. We saw a few of the marshals a couple of times(as you pass the same part but in a different direction) and it was all really friendly. I always love a one lap course, and it seemed to fly by, with my dad saying to me things like “we must have gone 1km by now” and then me checking my watch and seeing that we were nearly half way! As it was a bit twisty you could not look at the same view for very long, which I think added to the variety and enjoyment.

It wasn’t flat, but it was not hilly either- a few slopes and undulations here and there. Most of the course was on grass (or just dusty paths after all the dry weather) with a few short sections of tarmac, so I was fine in road shoes but after any sort of rain I would think trail shoes would be needed. I could imagine that it would be very muddy in the winter!

Check out the parkrun signs!

Once finished we scanned, took pop up photos and chatted to Rory for a bit.

Rory-Branka-Me-My brother, and then Rory-Branka-Me for the With Me Now crew!

We looked in the cafe but there wasn’t anything vegan that I could see- I didn’t mind if other people had food (as I could just buy a drink) but the queue was quite long and didn’t move while we tried to decide, so in the end we headed back to the car. The journey back home wasn’t too bad either, maybe five minutes longer than the way, and with the M25 that was very impressive as so often it feels like the journey to parkrun is OK and then the journey home takes ages.

So that was parkrun 414 for me, and location 138. Another one towards Lon-done too.

The voronoi map was very satisfying too- compared to some of the London ones it was a nice big chunk- we noticed that there are 3 stacked above each other- Ingrebourne Hill below, and Raphael above, so both of those will be added to the list as they should be fairly easy journeys.

Up next? No concrete plans- my dad is now on 95 different locations so his cowell will be at some point in the autumn, and of course I will do some more touring, but nothing is in my calendar at the moment.