So after a long gap away touring the home counties I am back in London to regain my parkrun regionnaire status that starts today at Clapham Common!

This will be my 51 completed different event out of 53 in the Greater London region 🙂

The park

Clapham Common is one of the most iconic and largest parks in Greater London being 87 hectres in size and is situated between Clapham, Battersea and Balham!

The Common’s history goes as far back as 1086 in the Doomsday book as common land owned by the Manor of Clapham!

I love the parks grade II listed bandstand that was built-in 1890 and is the largest surviving example in London today! On a warm summer evening it would be great to sit there and listen to music playing from this beautiful imposing structure, heaven!!!!

Volunteer Tourism

So I thought that I would try something different on my tourist adventures, with the permission of their core team I was Event 27 Clapham Commons tail walker 🙂

Why tail walking very simple I needed to pick a volunteering role that would not stop me from registering a time for this event!

The idea came from a very good tourist friend Dave Wilkinson (pictured left below) from Leeds who was also at Clapham today volunteering as well as running with his role being as pre event set up!

For the record Dave is an avid park-runner who has amassed a total of 484 events that includes 205 different ones and likes to avidly volunteer when touring!

You are a credit to all us parkrun tourists Dave!!!!!!

Course

The course is a simple 2 clockwise laps of the parameter of Clapham Common park that’s running surface is a mixture of tarmac and earth paths, very flat in terms of elevation!!!!

Points to Note

• Due to the narrow run paths they state this course is not suitable for buggies
• After prolonged rain I could see trail shoes being advisable on this course
• There are a few places where exposed tree roots could catch out the unwary
• At the start they organised volunteers to display finish time positions along the start line queue

Facilities

So if the parkrun I can get to is easily reached by public transport then I will take it, trust me Luton to Clapham Common is as simple as you can get to reach with 2 London underground tubes stations alone bordering this park with Clapham South being the closest to the start 🙂

Toilets are available before the start of the event and are 550 metres away from where the run briefing starts!

For the post run coffee we retired to the lovely La Baita cafe situated inside the park close to the finish line!!!

I love this urban park as there is so much going on from jogging, football matches, Skate park, fishing…….

Great to see how every inch of this park is lovingly used by the local community it serves!!!!

Final Verdict

I would like to thank todays Run Director Frank Elston and all the volunteers for making me and Dave feel welcome and part of your team!

Special mention Clapham Common has not been going long as an event and they had their largest run attendance to today with 620 park-runners and they done a brilliant job in its event smoothly, top work guy’s!!!!!!

Also great to bump into so many tourist friends including Carl and Olivia Heaps, Mark Shotton, Dave Williamson and my top buddy Martin Ball who bought his work colleague and friend Rob along (far right of photo below).

Welcome to our crazy lovely tourist family mate!!!

So finally very simple if you are looking for a fast time in an iconic London park, then Clapham Common is a must visit for any self-respecting tourist, you have been told!!!

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner