On one of the hottest Saturdays of the year it is great to be back touring with today’s event being held at Oxford Brookes University, Harcourt Hill campus.

First for me running a parkrun on university campus grounds with Harcourt Hill just 3 miles away from Oxford city centre and boasts excellent sports facilities that not only benefit university staff and students, but also for the local community as well that is great to hear!

Special mentions

I would like to wish Adam Clilverd and Rebecca Acton all the best for their upcoming wedding in 3 weeks’ time. Their plan is to run Oxford & University parks parkrun separately on the day and meet up for the wedding at 2pm. I love these parkrun stories 😊

Always a treat to meet up again with my very close running buddy Martin for another enjoyable fun packed morning!

Warm Weather Running

Even though parkrun starts at 9am in England & Wales, 9:30am in Scotland & Northern Ireland in heatwave conditions it is also good to take precautions!

• Make sure you are well hydrated before the start of your parkrun event
• Wear loose clothing and preferably a running hat to protect yourself from the sun
• If you wish carry a small water bottle around with you to drink on the course
• At the end of your run make there is water available to replenish what you have lost through sweating!
• If you are feeling unwell on the course, if you can get to the nearest marshal who can help or if not the closest runner to you to get assistance!
• Finally, you can always run a PB another week and be kind to yourself and run at a more conservative pace

Course

This course is a simple 2 anti-clockwise laps of the perimeter of the campuses playing fields that is run entirely on grass and is almost flat in elevation!

With the amber heatwave warnings in place, I decided to run very conservatively in the baking morning sun time: 33:56

Points to Note

• In the winter or after prolonged periods of rain I would recommend using trail shoes on this course
• Just be weary of exposed tree roots in the short, wooded section

So finally on this course in the right temperature conditions this could be quite a fast grass event to run with overall a well kept surface even though it is very parched in this current drought!

Facilities

There is free parking available at their sports centre car park Sat nav OX2 9AT and we have been told by the centre staff it is free on Saturdays. As a precaution though I did leave my car registration details with their reception staff

There are toilet and changing/shower room facilities right next to the start of this event that is always a great bonus to any parkrun event!

For our post run coffee, we travelled just over 1 mile down the road to West Way Square complex Botley to Missing Bean coffee shop for a lovely beverage and quiche tarts for a perfect finish to our morning adventure.

There is free parking up to 2 hours at West Way Square multi storey car park sat Nav OX2 0LW

Conclusion

I would like to thank this week’s top run director Jenny Cooke and her team of hi-vi heroes for making us feel all extremely welcome!

Who knows Jenny we may bump into each other again on our tourist adventures 🙂

So is you want to run a fast flat grass course with excellent facilities, then Harcourt Hill parkrun should be added to your parkrun tourist list 🙂

Best

Mark aka Silent Runner