Getting Down to Bisc-ness

Report writing for Bicester Parkrun copy and pasted below:

Bicester Parkrun Run Report #346

We arrived in Bicester Village, just a short train journey away from Oxford continuing our parkrun tourism streak. As with other small towns in Oxfordshire like Abingdon, Wantage and Didcot, Bicester also struck us as tranquil and pretty. With just a short 10-minute walk away from Langford Fields, we had time for a short walk around the green areas to take in the scenery on another ideal summer morning.

The stonehenge was the first thing to catch my eye - I was glad to be doing a couple of laps around it later – as well as the routes and activities on the tarmac for a Health 5K route which went through the park area (another welcome sight to re-catch my bearings on the route). I appreciated the amount of tarmac on the route after getting too used to almost completely grassy courses underfoot.

We joined for the first timers briefing to few shouts from tourists except one all the way from Belgium – there were in fact 18 parkrunners completing their first ever parkrun and 26 tourists (locations including Maidenhead, Blackburn, Aylesbury and Oxford!) Another noticeable sight was a form of yellow chicken-like costume, to celebrate his stag do with a group of friends – Congratulations! This is a sight far more common than one might think (flashback to my run report from Abingdon with a bride-to-be finishing wearing a veil and having champagne set up at the finish line).

I really enjoyed the course overall with multiple points of interest, being extremely flat, wide for the vast majority meaning few pinch points and being a very simple 2 lap course with a clear route through to the finish funnel at the end. A surprising sub-23-minute time in the scorching heat greeted me at the end as well as shouts for ice lollies and ice creams which I was extremely tempted by… A few milestones hit on this event, so huge congratulations to: 10 Parkruns – Arthur Hodgson 25 Parkruns – Patrick Bandeira 50 Parkruns – Oliver Spencer

We stuck around to cool off and help wrap up the extremely decorative and colourful finish funnel and then head home on the train for a summery weekend. A huge thank you to the volunteer team for putting on the event and allowing us to help out a bit on this tourist visit! We’ll be continuing on for more and I highly recommend Bicester Parkrun if you want a flat, fun and inviting course and even more so if you’d like to volunteer as no event can ever have enough! Until next time! Kieran (and Megan)