It was time for some more London parkrun tourism with Branka, and this one was going to fill a nice hole in our Voronoi maps. Brockwell parkrun is very close to Herne Hill station, which is on the Thameslink line, so I headed to St Albans to get on a direct train from there, meeting Branka at Herne Hill station.
You can pretty much see the park from the station, so we just had to walk into the park and locate the start, which was very simple. It was great to walk through the park so early- we could see lots of the central London skyline from the park, and on our way to the toilets saw the team wheeling their kit up to the start.
It was very windy so we had to hold the pop up while we took photos, but thankfully after what felt like a week of rain, the morning was fairly bright.
We left our bags on a bench inside a sort of shelter (it looked like an old concrete bus stop but it couldn’t have been as it was a traffic-free park), listened to the first timers welcome and then it was time to head down to the start line. They seemed to have a bit of trouble with people chatting during the run brief, even with their speaker system set up (and some people shouting “quiet!” to try to help), but we could just about hear the warnings against funnel ducking and the reminder to keep right rather than the more common left. They mentioned that they had received complaints from members of the public using the park at the same time, and so the compromise was to ensure that the parkrunners kept to the right so that some of the paths were clear for others.
After a few milestone announcements we realised that everyone was moving and the parkrun had started.
It’s pretty much a two lap course, with a little bit of extra in the first lap, and it’s undulating for sure. It is all on tarmac paths which was partly why we had chosen it (so many local runs to me are muddy and we just fancied finishing a parkrun without muddy socks). It was a really pretty park with lots to see on the way around, although I found the circular nature meant I totally lost my bearings. At one point on the first lap I noticed a lovely carved frog bench, and so on the second lap I got my phone out ready to take a photo, but I was so early I kept thinking I’d missed it.
The finish is pretty tough too, as you think all the hills are done but the short section into the finish funnel slopes uphill too. I was happy when I could stop!
The team had moved the pop up to the top of the hill (by the finish) rather than by the start line, so I got a few photos there as there was a lovely backdrop of London behind, plus some nice autumn colours and even a hint of blue sky.
We walked back to the station and popped into a bakery (there are plenty of very posh looking bakeries and cafes near the station) but nothing was labelled vegan and so I said to Branka that I’d get out the train at Kings Cross and head up to Angel to visit British Patagonia (a bakery and cafe that does the most amazing vegan pastries)- Branka decided to come too so we headed straight there. Angel also houses a Bird and Blend, so of course we popped in there on our way past. I had a matcha latte because I need some caffeine after I stop running.
We got the pastries to go, so luckily I had a cereal bar in my bag which I could have with my matcha for breakfast, and then I had pistachio pastry when I got home. Oh my goodness me they are delicious. (Top tip- they sometimes have bags of mixed pastries that are close to their sell-by date- I got one this time to pop in the freezer but they are always a good deal- the one I got had 3 or 4 pastries and was about £7).
Onto the map update:
It was very pleasing because after going to Dulwich and Peckham Rye, I had a little gap in the map, but going to Brockwell filled that one in. We didn’t get our results through until about 10:30 pm, and my placing was quite different to my token number, so I imagine the poor team had a few things to sort (even though they reminded people in the briefing not to funnel duck…).
That was parkrun 429 and location 146. Obviously with more events, Lon-DONE is one of those where the goal gets ever bigger, but this of course helped and was my 36th London event (out of 66 currently).
It does remind me that apart from getting up early (my St Albans train was about 7:15am) it can be really easy to do some London train tourism.
Up next? Well, who knows basically. I am not keen on making big plans at this time of year in case bad weather means loads of cancellations, although the peas do have a trip pencilled in for before the end of the year.
