Skip to main content

Millennium Country parkrun

My plan for parkrun was simple this week - attend an event which involves minimal travel, and take it slow. I'm running the Brighton Marathon tomorrow, which will involve me travelling to Brighton on Saturday afternoon to check in, coupled with an overnight stay, so I decided to attend Millennium Country parkrun between Bedford and Milton Keynes.

The area

Millennium Country Park is located between Stewartby and Marston Moretaine, in Bedfordshire. The area is perhaps best known for its brick works under the ownership of the London Brick Company, which was a major contributor to the redevelopment efforts after world war 2, although emissions regulations have more recently drawn the brickworks operations in the area to move on. A number of chimneys remain on the skyline from the former brickworks, although the chimneys are being demolished as time passes, especially in favour of new housing developments.

Built on the site of a former quarry, Millennium Country Park is owned and operated by the Forest of Marston Vale charity, which aims to create a forest across the Bedfordshire area, and has planted a number of sites already. The park is primarily based around two lakes in the Stewartby area, with one of the lakes designated as a pay-per-entry wildlife conservation area, while the other lake hosts sailing clubs.

The course

The course is a flat, fast out-and-back along three sides of Stewartby Lake, on gravel and dirt paths.

Paid parking is available at the Forest Centre. Free parking is available in various points surrounding the country park, but involves a short walk to the start area. The Forest Centre is the location of toilets and a cafe for after-run refreshments, and is conveniently near the start / finish area.

The run

It was a cold, but dry, still and sunny start to the day today, makin for great running conditions! With Brighton in mind, and having tapered for that in the preceeding week, I decided that I was going to use today's run just to freshen up for tomorrow, and so I positioned myself towards the back of the start for this week's run.

I managed to hold myself back for the entire run, deliberately getting my slowest time for a very long time, even getting pipped to the finish line by a very young runner (although I did have to fight the urge to sprint myself)!

Thanks to the volunteers for organising a very relaxing run this morning - just what I needed before Brighton!

After the run

As I needed to head towards Brighton, I didn't wait around for too long today, but a walk around the lakes is definitely something I would recommend. The surrounding landscape is also makes a great setting for longer walks too.

Links: Results | Strava

Labels:
Location: The Forest Centre & Millennium Country Park, The Forest Centre, Station Rd, Marston Moretaine, Bedford MK43 0PR, UK

Popular posts from this blog

Markshall Estate parkrun

Having spent a number of weeks focussed on events in the north of the East of England, I decided that this week I would pay some attention to the south of the region and visit Markshall Estate parkrun while still in the best time of the year to visit an arboretum. The area The Markshall Estate (interchangably the "Marks Hall" Estate) is the remains of a former country estate located in Coggeshall, between Colchester and Braintree. The hall itself was demolished in 1950, leaving its grounds to be converted into an arboretum, featuring trees from around the world. Coggeshall has been a settled area since at least the Saxon area, and was later served by Stane Street; a Roman road stretching from modern day Colchester to near St Albans. The course The route follows just under two laps of the arboretum, starting at the top of a hill, and finishing at the bottom, meaning this is a net down-hill course. The course is run on a mixture of tarmac, concrete, gravel, trail an
Read more

Mildenhall Hub parkrun

This week I decided to make some more progress on the Fibonacci Sequence challenge by attending event number 5 of the new Mildenhall Hub parkrun! The area Mildenhall is a small market town located between Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds. The modern town's population is heavily influenced by the two airforce bases located on the outskirts of the town, with up to a third of the town's residents being born in USA! The town is also where the Mildenhall Treasure was discovered - a collection of Roman silverwar considered to be perhaps the most important and valuable Roman treasure find in Britain. Owing to its importance and value, the treasure is now on permanent display at the British Museum. To the west of the town lies Mildenhall Hub, a newly built community centre, and host of this week's parkrun event! The course One lap of the course follows an initial out-and-back section, followed a lap of the adjoining meadow, with runners following the route two and a hal
Read more

Ally Pally parkrun

Now that I have completed the UK Alphabet, my focus has turned towards the East of England region. As there are so many events to choose from, I'm going to start by working through events in alphabetical order again, with an emphasis on working east to west, which for me, effectively orders events furthest to nearest. During my initial exploration of the challenge, I did make a mistake however, which I only realised after running this event - I didn't realise that Aldenham parkrun was in the region, and so I started this phase of parkrunning by running Ally Pally parkrun instead! The area Ally Pally, or Alexandra Palace, is a purpose built community centre in Haringey, North London. Unlike other palaces in the UK, Ally Pally has no royal connection, and instead has been entirely community oriented since its conception. The palace houses a theatre, concert hall, a convention centre, an ice rink, and has facilitated BBC broadcasts an
Read more