First up it was a very special ladies 50th birthday celebration today (she does not look 50) one of the founder members and run director of Burgess parkrun, Maureen! Have a very happy birthday and it was all my pleasure meeting you on this special occasion!

Also it was my great to meet up with parkrun tourist royalty in the form of Lousie Ayling and Dave Williamson who together make a combined UK most parkrun events total of 354, wow! You are both my inspiration and it was great getting to know you both!

Course

The start is by the tennis courts, then you run 1km along a straight path using the underpass for the bridge of nowhere! After the 1k m point you make a sharp left turn and also soon after turn left again to run on a path parallel to the one you have just run! Next when you arrive at the marshal position at Bench Turn you zig zag back again on yourself this time to the lake!

Next you run two laps of the lake before running back the way you come, except after Bench turn this time is a much shorter distance before you complete two sharp right turns back. Once you are on the home straight it is a shorter run back to the finish tunnel!

This is on the whole a very flat PB style course with a couple of small undulations! I must admit I was very impressed in the condition of this 100% tarmac course, also never seen it before but there was painted parkrun logo signalling each kilometre mark, nice touch!

Personal Stats

Time today was 29:29 a new Capital challenge PB for me that I am very happy with, but know that I still need to improve my fitness and am not fooling myself this is a very gentle course to run around!

Important info

There is a reasonable amount of street metered parking available around Addington Square that is free to park at weekends and is right near the start of the course!

The park itself boosts a good number of facilities for the local community including:

• Tennis Centre with a number of outside courts
• 400 metre BMX track
• Football and Cricket pitches
• Fishing

Toilet used today were at the tennis centre and it made a nice change that shower/changing facilities were available after the parkrun there as well! Not sure what the problem was though but there was no hot water available, so all I am going to say is that was one of the most embracing showers of my life!

The post run coffee venue was a lovely cafe called Fowlds that is just a few minutes walk away from the start of the parkrun!

Final Verdict

Burgess will be undoubtably in the top 5 at the end of my London parkrun adventure for being a very fast PB style course, you all have been told!

Finally I would like to thank the run director Chris Raveney and his team of volunteers for making me and everybody at today’s event feel extremely welcome, top work guys!

Run on 19-11-2016

Extra News

This week I felt very humble that at our AGM my club Stopsley Striders both awarded me with a October Striders month award for help organising our social Halloween run and also the members voted me onto the committee for 2016-17.

I will try my hardest not to not let you down guys!

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner

Run on 19/11/2016