On Saturday, six days after the Brighton marathon, I returned to Preston Park for their inaugural parkrun.
It’s one of the more unusual parkrun courses that I’ve run*.
To anyone from Cardiff, St Albans, York, Harrogate or Bushy parkruns, this is a hilly course. To anyone from Dewsbury, Ashton Court, Ally Pally, Hampstead Heath or Conkers, it’s flat.
Visitors from King’s Lynn, Netley Abbey and Maidstone will find the switchbacks familiar, and will be well trained in the art of keeping to one side of the path looking for friends or rivals running in the opposite direction. Visitors from more traditional lapped courses like Wimbledon, Dulwich or Hilly Fields may find the sight of so many approaching runners disconcerting.
Buggy runners from Finsbury Park and Riddlesdown will find the relatively gentle gradients and tarmac surface a welcome relief (though they’ll need to watch out for the bollards), and everyone will be able to appreciate the café.
*Three slightly different laps of gently undulating tarmac, each with an out and back section.
abradypus 
How you remember what all those parkruns are I have no idea, but love your comparisons!
I don’t remember all the details, but tend to remember flat vs hilly, trees vs playing field, single lap vs multiple lap. Oddly, I really struggle with tarmac vs trail.
You are such a brilliant source of info! I think a few charts and stats on a parkrun map might be called for!
I agree with Rachel! you should do A Dummies Guide to Parkruns 🙂
Sounds good – got this one in my diary for early November when I come down to Brighto for WorldCon. 🙂
It has been shown through extensive research, that parkrunners have memory 20% greater than that of the general population!
I can’t remember where I saw that though.
I too am impressed with your recall.
(P.S. In attempting to click a link to get here from my page, I think I may have deleted some of your past comments. It wasn’t deliberate. Big thumbs.
)
I shall try not to take it personally 😉 The deleting of the comments that it, not the compliment on my mental faculties.
V impressive that you can remember all of those, thank goodness St Albans is my closest!
Thanks for the buggy running info. 🙂 Sounds like an interesting course to run – It’s on the list for the summer (if it ever arrives)!