People wonder why parkruns are such a great success and I think I found the answer today at Harrow Lodge it is the community of people who make it special!

Today I was very luck to be in the company of some truly lovely friendly people who I have ever had the pleasure to meet that treated me like gold with their warm hospitality!

For the record unlike the name suggests Harrow Lodge is based in Hornchurch and is one of the largest parks the London Borough of Havering has to offer!

I also had the pleasure of meeting Annabel who works for the London Fire brigade at the same fire station Willesden as my good running club friend Nikki who joined me at the Fulham Palace earlier in my challenge!

It is also great to meet fellow avid parkrun tourists from Bexley as their home parkrun was cancelled today due to setting up for their fireworks display tonight! Anyway it is great to share stories with fellow like minded tourist, see you all on the 3rd March 2017 for event 34 🙂

Course

The course is one winding 5k clockwise single lap of the parameter of the park that is run predominately on grass that starts and finishes adjacent to Warren Drive car park!

The reason why I love this challenge is the different tests these parkrun events have to offer today it was like running a cross country style course that it the depth of winter would probably to tricky to run without trail running shoes!

Personal Stats

Not a great day for my personal time of 31:53 but it all a learning curve as it is the first time I have done a cross-country style parkrun in cold conditions, so I won’t beat myself up to much!

Important Info

There is a free car park at Warren Drive entrance of the park but get there early as it gets very busy just before the start of the run! The closest toilets are a five-minute walk away at Hornchurch Sports centre that is the other side of the park!

Here are some of the other facilities the park has to offer:

• Playsite
• Ball court
• Skate/BMX
• Tennis courts
• Bowling green
• Football
• Cricket
• Conservation area
• Lake/pond
• River

On a cold day like today there is a nice post run boating lake cafe on site and thank you Lucy for treating me to a hot cuppa after a very cold run, much appreciated!

Final Verdict

I would like to thank Mike Diver and his team of parkrun volunteers for their very warm hospitality on a very cold morning!

A very interesting course that lovers of cross-country would like to test themselves on, in very wet ground conditions could make this a fun challenge for the lovers of running in mud!

Finally I would like to finish thanking everyone at Harrow Lodge, you have a great community spirit there that is quite special and very welcoming to us tourists!

Top work guys!

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner

Run on 05-11-2016