Watergate Forest Park 5K

Yonks back, when I was still all keen, I started making up 'fantasy' parkrun courses based on places I'd seen on Google Maps or onthegomap.com that looked suitable for a 5K run. This weekend, I finally made it to one of the green bits I'd spotted on the map: Watergate Forest Park.

The lake at Watergate Forest Park is probably its main feature but I barely saw it

While I'd already mapped out a 5K-ish route a while back, there was also a 5K mapped out on AllTrails too and it turns out that even on the free tier, you get to see your location on the route as you run. Bonus!

Turns out it was only about 2 minutes' drive from home too.

Anyway, how was the course? Pretty good, actually. The paths are mostly fine-to-medium grade gravel and fairly wide, with a little bit of regular forest floor type of trail too. On the route I took (I veered from the AllTrails route a little), the gradients were also pretty good: a few hundred metres of gentle undulation followed by about a mile of steady (but still gentle) uphill. After that, it was a mix of gentle downhill, one decent stretch of steeper downhill and a fair bit of flat nearer the lake.

Metalwork sculptures abound in the park, with this one runnable through

For the most part, it was it was in the trees too, which is always nice, but there was the odd emergence in meadow-like areas and a roughly half-mile long section in the middle that was on tracks through fields. And a short section that passed little man-made waterfalls where the water left the lake. All in all, a nice mix.

And my time? Well, according to Google Fit I covered a total of 5¼ kilometres in 31:22. And the first 5K was in 29:55. Given the terrain and my lack of sustained practice over the past 6 months, I'm taking that as a WIN. Maybe my goals are getting slack, but I'm still happy to have dipped under 30 minutes for a 5K for the first time this year.

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