So on the hottest day of the year I came to Felixstowe, Suffolk on a summers mini break to visit a close relative and the sun painted a beautiful picture postcard view on this lovely traditional English seaside resort town!

Apart from tourism shipping is also a large part of the Felixstowe economy with the port being the biggest and busiest container port in the UK and is located at the mouth of both the River Stout and Orwell.

Great to see the huge container ships leaving the port on the horizon and wondering what distant countries they are bound for with their expensive cargo 🙂

Volunteer Superstar

On my tourist travels I have been lucky to meet so many parkrun event volunteer superstars that every week they give up there time just to volunteer at their event, but I think at Felixstowe our tail walker Rory Marriott has to go down as a ultra volunteer superstar with 589 roles completed from run director to barcode scanning, 106 of them as a tourist and over a 8 years period that started at Valentines parkrun, London back in 2011, simply wow!!!

Rory you are a dream for a event team trying to fill their weekly roster, a credit to the whole of our parkrun community and jolly decent chap to have a talk to as well, we all salute you sir!!!

Small World

I had a lovely chat to a number parkrun patrons on the day including Gary Parr from Peterborough another fellow member of the unofficial UK parkrun tourist group, but Emma Hoddy who I run with at the end like me was born in Luton and noticed I was from the town as I was wearing my apricot Luton, Wardown parkrun vest, a very small world 🙂

For the record it was Emma’s first parkrun and I hope one day if she reads this article will join us back at my beloved home event of Wardown park 🙂

Course

The course is a single lap of the promenade that starts and finishes by the distance marker next to the leisure centre and surface is entirely made up of tarmac! The run starts off in a South West direction for 1.2km and your turning point is in front of the Martello tower, once you have got back to the start/line your run 1.3KM in North East direction until you reach the final turning point and then run back to the finish funnel.

In the right weather conditions this has the potential of being your of being one of your fastest ever parkrun time!

My time was 40:54 OK for the hot weather and where I am fitness wise at present!

Points to note

• Position yourself at the start where you think time wise you with finish the event as it is a bit congested to overtake for the first couple of minutes
• Definitely trainers running shoes kind of course
• Very slight incline towards both turning points of the course!

Facilities

There is pay and display parking at Undercliff Road West that is right next to the start, post code IP11 2AE or about half a mile away there is free parking at Garrison Lane Car Park post code IP11 7SH.

There are toilet facilities at Broadwalk cafe on the pier and is a great location for the post run coffee afterwards!

There is so much to do in the town after this parkrun, I would recommend taking a look at their visit Felixstowe tour guide and explore!

Final Verdict

I would like to thank this weeks run director Caroline Stafford and her team of volunteers for the warmest of seaside welcomes and done a great job managing the 274 strong field of running, outstanding effort guys!!!!

So finally if you are looking for a flat fast course in a lovely traditional seaside town setting then Felixstowe parkrun has to be high on your to do list of touring!!!!

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner