Skip to main content

Irchester Country parkrun

Running in Salcey Forest last week was refreshing, and so I was looking for another forest/woods-based run this week. While checking the event map, I saw that Irchester Country parkrun had popped up - an event I had heard was mainly in woodland, but also quite hilly. I hadn’t run a hilly event yet, so this extra dimension was enough to confirm my destination for this week.

The area

Irchester Country Park is located on the outskirts of the village Irchester, in the south of Northamptonshire. The village was noted in the Domesday book 1086 under (then spelt Irencestre), and elements of the village still survive from that date.

The maturing woodlands that cover the majority of the Country Park were planted around 1965, and sit on the site of a former ironstone quarry. Ironstone extraction continued until the deposit’s exhaustion in the 1960s. The remainder of the site consists of meadows and a miniature railway museum.

The course

The course is described as a lollipop, and begins in the small meadow adjacent to the railway museum to the west of the park. From there, runners proceed east along the gravel path, before transitioning to trail as you enter the woods. The 2nd to 4th kilometers are rather lumpy treks through the woods, while the final kilometer levels out to the finish on the grass meadow near to the cafe.

Ample paid parking is available on-site, and toilets are open before the run starts. The Cafe is also open as the run finishes.

The run

This was a tough one! Still being new to running, I was perhaps too naive about how much hills impact things! I set off at around the same pace as usual, and when the inline started, I tried to keep the same or similar pace. This was a bad decision! I sapped all the strength from my legs before we had even finished “licking the lollipop”, and it took all I had to hold on to the end. Lesson learned - don’t take hills for granted!

One thing that did stick out on the trail hills, that I want to keep in mind for next week, is that I was running in road shoes, whose grip was probably not quite up to the task at Irchester, as I wasn’t completely sure-footed all the way around the course this week.

Ian struggling to run up a hill

Thank you to all of the volunteers, who made this run a very pleasant one!

Links: Run report | Results | Strava

Labels:
Location: Irchester Country Park, Gipsy Ln, Little Irchester, Irchester, Wellingborough NN29 7DL, UK

Popular posts from this blog

Coldham's Common parkrun

As my recovery from injury is still underway, I decided that I would attend a flat course this week to avoid any potential for reaggrevation. Unfortunately this means I will need to pause my completion of the Essex events, as the remaining courses are all somewhat lumpy. Having visited all of the other Cambridge parkruns, including Storeys Field parkrun, Fulbourn Hospital parkrun, and Cambridge parkrun knowing that they are all relatively flat, I decided that this week I would complete the Cambridge set. The area Coldham's Common has a long history, serving as both a hospital during the 17th century smallpox outbreak, and a quarry during the 19th century, as well as a rifle range also during the 19th century. The course The route follows two laps of the perimeter of the common through an hour-glass shape, connecting two fields through a five-bar-gate. The course is all on grass, and is all flat. Limited parking is available nearby, while toilets are available in...
Read more

Delamere parkrun

Being the festive season, I decided to pause my exploration of the East of England in favour of visiting events closer to family in Liverpool. While there are a number of events closer to Liverpool, I decided to visit Delamere parkrun, being somewhere I hadn't explored when living in the area previously. The area Delamere forest is all that remains of a much larger forest in the area. The forest spent some time as a Royal hunting forest, before being handed to Forestry England. The course The course follows a single lap of a lollipop route, through forests, and around the Blakemere Moss lake, starting and finishing near the visitor centre. The visitor centre includes paid parking, toilets, and a cafe, while free parking is also available in some of the other forest car parks, though they are further from the start line providing a great opportunity for a warm up! The route is all on a mixture of gravel and trail, and is mostly flat except for one short but steep incl...
Read more

Brentwood parkrun

This week I decided to return to making more progress towards completing all events in Essex by visiting Brentwood. The area While the modern town of Brentwood is a popular commuter town, being served by the Elizabeth line, it is also where the first events of the Peasants Revolt took place. Locals refused to pay a poll tax imposed on them, and instead rioted, threatening to kill the commissioner trying to collect the tax. Word of these riots spread to the wider country, initiating the wider revolt, including at Littleport , Billericay and North Walsham . The town is surrounded by countryside, and in the west lies Weald Park; the remains of a former country estate. The park was originally considered as a possible location for the mountain biking course during the 2012 Olympics, before the committee ultimately decided that Hadleigh would prove a more challenging course. The course Owing to the wet weather, today's run followed an alternative route nicknamed "The B...
Read more