29/08/2026
Well that was a wet one today!
Some wonderful news - thanks to the amazing parkrun community we have achieved our fundraising target for a new defibrillator. Thank you so much 😊
Numbers were down somewhat today, I can’t think why 🤔🌧️
However that didn’t stop Andrew travelling down all the way from South Wales. Thank you Andrew for penning this weeks report….
29/08/26 Parkrun Run Report
I was doing some tourism this week as I had booked on a trip with Johnston’s Tours to do the parkrun in Poole. Our trip did have a drop off at Upton House as some people wanted to do that one instead, in order to get the ‘U’ for their parkrun challenges. However I had already done Upton House so Poole was the obvious option. It was an excellent choice but unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side this morning. After all the glorious weeks we have had it was extremely wet, with it also being quite breezy on parts of the course.
It should be noted that parking in the Poole Park is not allowed until 10am but there is a public parking at the Dolphin swimming pool car park across the road from the park. We had been able to park the coach we arrived on in a coach park a very short walk from the parkrun.
I was really impressed at how welcoming and friendly the volunteers were. Even other local participants that were present were friendly and easy to talk with to share their experiences. The first timer’s brief that was given was very good and included a very clear explanation of the course. There were quite a few tourists this morning, including participants from Barnstaple, Bushy in London, Long Eaton in Derbyshire, someone from Scotland and even someone from Johannesburg. It’s always good to see others from different places.
The course is all on tarmac and some compact gravel paths and starts near to Kingland Road play park. Dogs on short leads and buggies were welcome at the parkrun which was lovely to see. Poole parkrun is a lovely flat course with a nice wide start, which accommodates for the number of people taking part. Once across a short tarmac section the course takes a sharp turn right and heads towards the cricket pitch, where an anticlockwise lap is mad on tarmac paths. Care needed to be taken at this right turn today as it was slightly slippery due to the heavy rain. Once the lap of the cricket pitch has been completed the route heads back towards the start. When the finish area is passed the route then takes participants on an anticlockwise lap of the large lake/lagoon. It is very scenic as you progress around the lake, but probably would have been much more scenic if it hadn’t been so wet. When the lap of the lake has almost been completed the parkrun course turns right for another lap around the cricket pitch and then back to the finish area under a row of trees near to a fountain. Thanks have to be given to all the volunteers out on a well marshalled and very easy to follow course in what was certainly challenging conditions. They were very encouraging to all the participants taking part. In total there were 677 people who ran, walked or jogged the parkrun today and of these there were 94 first timers with 50 people achieving a new personal best. Well done to everyone. One individual was actually doing their first ever parkrun this morning so congratulations to them also. I hope they realise that life won’t be the same again.
After the parkrun there’s the opportunity to get a post parkrun coffee in one of the many local cafes in town. However, I expect that a lot of people were looking forward to getting into some dry kit first. Despite the bad weather it was a great morning out and I will definitely be returning again in the future when back in the area.
