Thursday 29 March 2012

Inaugural runs: Wanstead Flats parkrun (21 May 2011)

The lure of a brand new parkrun for the second week in a row proved too strong to resist, and this morning saw me driving across London to Wanstead Flats parkrun.

If Wanstead Flats were a diy product, it would definitely be from the Ronseal stable. It's near Wanstead and it's flat, a welcome relief after the hills at Hampstead last week.

It's also one of the most well appointed parkruns that I've been to. The car park, loos, indoor bag dump, start and finish are all within a stone's throw of each other, and at the end you can help yourself to Finest London Tap Water (and probably tea and coffee on colder mornings).

It's also blessed with an extremely friendly local running club, the East London Runners, who chatted quite happily to anyone and everyone and who made encouraging noises to us stragglers at the point where the course loops back on itself 1km into the lap.

A special mention to the quick thinking volunteer team. Despite the instructions at the beginning, the lead runners missed a right turn at the end of the first lap, extending it by about half a kilometre. The rest of us, sheep-like, followed them unswervingly. Un-panicked, the race director sent instructions to the marshals to cut lap two short, bringing us home in just a little over 5.25km. PBs all round next week!

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