Hilly Fields 600th parkrun, 2025

Hilly Fields parkrun celebrated its 600th run today. Since the event started in 2012 nearly 16,000 different people have taken part at least once, and more than 1,000 people have volunteered to make it happen. The runners and walkers have notched up a combined distance of 607,020 km - all the way to the moon (384k) and most of the way back!

I started running there in 2013 and was there for their first birthday and their 100th run among other anniversaries. I have got to know lots of people, most of my contemporaries seeming to have gone through a similar trajectory - starting out and getting quicker and quicker, getting seriously into running and joining local club (Kent AC), taking part in lots of races from cross country to marathons, reaching a peak, running disrupted by Covid and then being injured. Most of us now seem to be have slowed back down and jog around Hilly Fields complaining about knees, ankles and other parts, but hey we're still going...

Still not everyone from my early days at Hilly Fields has slowed down - here's Olympian Alex Yee out front there in 2015 with me in the following group. Ten years later he's not doing badly is he?

Must admit I am not currently a regular a Hilly Fieldser as I have been in the past, but I have done 181 parkruns there as well as many other circuits in training. I know every divot in the course around the park and I would like to thank the trees along the way many of which I feel I know individually, including where to avoid their roots. On the Montague Avenue hill side of the park for instance there's a group of horse chestnut trees, currently in bloom, which cast a much needed shadow on one of the toughest parts of the course. Nearby there's a remarkable willow tree which split in a storm so that its main trunk is now horizontal - but still very much alive.  At the bottom of this hill there is a large London plane tree (I think) which marks the turning point on the winter course while another tree at the corner of Montague Avenue and Hilly Fields Crescent marks another turn.

What could the trees tell us about this place and its history? In his locally set novel 'Donkey Boy' (published in 1952 but set at turn of 20th century), author Henry Williamson refers to the 'socialist oak' on Hilly Fields where radical meetings were held, and indeed there was many such meetings at that time. On sunny days running up that big hill you can also see traces of the prefab houses built to replace housing destroyed in the second world war. And maybe one day future archaeologists will wonder about the origins of the compacted earth trackways around the park and their relationship to that mysterious stone circle... 

First Catford parkrun in Mountsfield Park

The inaugural Catford parkrun took place in Mountsfield Park this morning, with just over 200 runners taking part. Joe Hartley (Kent AC) set the men's course record of 17:43, no doubt he could go faster when he's properly over the London Marathon where he ran a 2:41 PB. Vicky Boyle set the women's course record of 21:26.  

Joe Hartley, first finisher (photo from @freyathlon)

It's an interesting course, undulating rather than hilly, with a psychological plus point that it feels like there's more down hill than up. Unlike many London parkruns much of it is on grass/trail rather than tarmac and with my ongoing achilles issues I certainly welcomed the softer surfaces. My run was slow and a bit sore, but hey I am currently the V55 course record holder with 23:45! Yes this time last year I could still occasionally manage a sub-20 5k, whether I will get back to that or nor I've accepted that it is a privilege just to be able to keep running. 

 The start and finish points are by the park's bandstand, and the three lap course also features a circuit of a field in park that has the distinction of briefly being  the home of Charlton Athletic FC in the 1920s as well as the long defunct Catford Southend FC (see more at Running Past on this).

don't worry, you don't have to run up these steps...

watch out for the cat -  the start of Mountsfield parkrun is a 15 minute
walk from the centre of Catford

This is the third parkrun in a Lewisham park, the others being at Beckenham Place and at Hilly Fields, my home parkrun. I went along there last week for its 300th event. As it was also the day before the London Marathon there were a lot of tourists in town, so Hilly Fields had its second largest ever attendance of 341. As numbers grow, the new Catford event should take some of the pressure off it. 

Hilly Fields parkrun 300 cake

the end of Hilly Fields parkrun 300

'welcome to the 300th Hilly Fields parkrun'

Hilly Fields snow run

There seemed to be a lot of people walking around by London Bridge yesterday wearing T-shirts and the occasional crop top in the sun. I was finding it hard to believe the forecast for the next day's snow. But true enough when I woke up this morning to get ready for Hilly Fields parkrun the snow was coming down heavily in South East London.

When I got to the park it was clear that the weather didn’t seem to have discouraged anybody. I suspect that many, like me, were relishing the rare opportunity to run in the snow, especially as during the snowfall a couple of weeks ago many races and park runs were cancelled .

So about 250 runners in multiple layers made their weekly three circuits of the park, joined this time by members of local triathlon clubs (including Brixton Windrush, Greenwich Tritons, Westcroft and Crystal Palace tri clubs). staging their own 'mob match' race within the parkun.

At the top of the hill the wind was blowing the snow across more or less horizontally but other than that it wasn’t too bad. I was certainly warmer running than watching others run in the cold, as I did at the Big Half and cross country nationals recently. I have been out of action with injury with last week's Peckham parkrun my first 5K effort since early January. I still can’t go too far or fast but it was great to be out in the elements with this friendly as usual crowd. I know its customary to thank the volunteers and marshals, on this occasion they certainly earned it.

runners footsteps up the big hill in Hilly Fields

ready for snow action

2017 seasons on the run - reviewing my running year

2017 is drawing to a close and once again my personal running calendar has been largely synchronised with the seasons of British athletics club culture. The weekly cycle of Tuesday club session, Saturday race, Sunday long run inserted in the larger annual cycles of Winter cross country, Spring road running/marathon, Summer track and back around to the start of cross country again in the Autumn. This would be largely familiar to the runners of a century ago, probably the only significant change in the last ten years has been the addition of a weekly parkrun into many's Saturday routines, and annual parkrun landmarks over the midwinter holiday period.

So like many others my 2017 started off with a double parkrun on New Year's Day (in my case Peckham Rye followed by Hilly Fields) and has come to an end with a Christmas Day parkrun at Hilly Fields, my home parkrun in Lewisham and recently ranked in a Run Britain analysis as the joint 7th toughest parkrun course out of 300 in the UK.

elf on my shoulder at Hilly Fields parkrun, Christmas Day 2017

In between highlights have included:

- January - Surrey League XC at Mitcham Common;  Southern Cross Country Champs at Parliament Hill (me pictured below at end of 1st lap in Southerns).

- February - English National Cross Country Champs in Nottingham; final race of 2016/17 Surrey League XC at Wimbledon Common.
- April - London Marathon; Paddock Wood Half Marathon; start of Assembly League at Beckenham Place Park.
- May - Assembly League at Victoria Park.
- June - Kent AC 800m and 3000m club champs; Assembly League in Battersea Park.

800m champs



Some of the Kent AC crew at Battersea Park for Assembly League

- July - Assembly League at Victoria Park; Bewl 15, Dulwich Runners Midsummer Relays.
- September - Southern Road Relays at Crystal Palace; Assembly League finale at Beckenham Place Park; Ladywell 10,000m; Kent AC 5000m champs; Marsha Phoenix 10k relays.

Marsha Phoenix 10k relay, Hilly Fields - low key charity fundraiser,
our two teams came 2nd and 3rd and won free fish and chips at Brockley Rock!

- October - Start of cross country season with Surrey League Division One race at Reigate Priory.
- November - Surrey League Cross Country at Mitcham Common.
- December - Kent Vets Cross Country at Dartford.


In terms of my own running it has definitely been a year of two halves. The first half of the year saw some of my hardest ever training rewarded with  PBs in the half marathon (1:34 at Paddock Wood) and in the London Marathon (3:34), as well as in 800m and 3000m in club champs.. For a little while after my good form was sustained, but by the summer it felt like the wheels had fallen off. Maybe the heavy winter/spring mileage eventually took its toll, but I've had a tender achilles/ankle for most of the second half of the year, with various other aches and pains. Not enough to stop me running altogether but certainly enough to slow me down significantly. Low point was Kent AC 10,000m champs where I could feel myself limping and struggling to get round.

Athletics is a mercilessly exact sport in confirming exactly how far we have fallen - I know for instance that my Kent Vets time this month was two minutes and 12 seconds slower over the same 5 mile course than a year earlier. My 5k parkrun time is also about 90 seconds down. It's a bit demoralising but I guess I have been fortunate as a V50 runner to have previously had four years of injury free improvement. It does make you focus on why you run - good for age times and PBs can't be everything and even on some of my poorer days I have really enjoyed running in new places. I loved running down through the woods in Reigate cross country for instance and round Bewl reservoir in the sun. Also enjoyed checking out some different parkruns, including doing a couple in the middle of long Marathon training runs across London. Not to mention exploring Lisbon.

Mile End parkrun, February 2017

Fulham parkrun, March 2017

Of course even when you're not running well yourself you can still enjoy watching others run. As an athletics spectator the highlight for me was a night at the World Championships at the ex-Olympics Stadium on August. It was great to see some of my favourite athletes up close in action, including Laura Muir, Faith Kipyegon, Jenny Simpson, Sifan Hassan (all in womens 1500m final), Allyson Felix (in 200m heats pictured below), Jack Green, Karsten Warholm and Sophie Hitchon. Most enjoyable moment was the men's 110m hurdles final, won by Jamaica's Omar McLeod. I was sitting two seats behind his mum so it was pretty joyful.

Night of 10,000m PBs (view below from beer tent) at Highgate gets better every year, 2017 incorporating the British trials for the World Champs.  Our Kent AC contingent gave some fairly rowdy support as Beth Potter won the fantastic women's race and Andy Vernon the men's.

I was proud too of my club's Ladywell 10,000m champs in September. Even if my personal race wasn't great, the event was a big step forward for the club with beer, music and some very competitive fields. It was great to see Katrina Wooton (pictured) run the fastest UK women's 10,000m this year (31.45) - and become the 11th fastest UK woman of all time - on my home track.

Kent AC continues to grow and get stronger. Although I only occasionally score for the club in vets events I enjoy being part of the big squad we manage to turn out in races. This year the club has won the men's Surrey cross country league, the men's and women's Assembly League, and in the English Marathon championships the women won team gold and the men silver - thanks to more than 50 taking part in the London Marathon, 29 finishing in less than three hours. I've got a bit more involved in the organisational side of the club, taking on the joint role of child welfare officer (taking my work home maybe as I work in children's services) as well as editing the sporadic newsletter.

So after 1400+ miles this year, on to 2018. I don't have any running goals as yet other than seeing a physio and getting back to some kind of form if I can. I do have a place in the first Big Half in March, the new London 13 miler organised by the London Marathon team. Although I have a good for age qualifying time for this race, I don't expect to do much more than jog round with current fitness but still hope to take part in what should be an iconic event.

Happy New Year and good luck with your running in 2018!

Running London: Brockley and Nunhead Five Peaks (10k route)

Last summer's 'Lewisham 3 Peaks Challenge' was a successful charity walk linking three South East London hill tops with fine views across the capital - Hilly Fields, Blythe Hill Fields and One Tree Hill in Honor Oak. An excellent map  with lots of interesting historical detail has been produced, designed by Linda Durrant (Full Circle Design), to promote this as an ongoing walking route.

Detail of Brockley Three Peaks Walk, showing Ladywell Arena athletics track

 

I picked up a copy in the Hilly Fields café after parkrun there and thought I would give it a go as a run, but to mix it up a bit and increase the distance I added in a couple more hills - Telegraph Hill and the hill in Nunhead Cemetery historically known as Nunhead Hill.

 

It is a good run, just over 10k in total, with plenty of up and down hill stretches of course. Toughest part is the steep stairs to the top of One Tree Hill, but as with all the hills there is the reward of the view from the top. An added advantage is that for several sections of the run it is possible to run on grass.

View from Hilly Fields with Crystal Palace TV transmitter on the horizon
and Blythe Hill Fields also visible above the tree line

View from Blythe Hill Fields with Canary Wharf on the horizon

 

The Shard and the City of London visible from top of One Tree Hill

View from top of Nunhead Cemetery - St Pauls Cathedral is visible through the gap in the trees (though not very clear in this photo). The artists JMW Turner sketched St Pauls from near this spot

London skyline from Telegraph Hill upper park

Here's the full '5 peaks' route on map my run.

(Lewisham Three Peaks Challenge walk will take place again on 1 July 2017)


Other Running London posts:

Tracking London's first rail journey - Deptford to Spa Road

In praise of the Greenwich foot tunnel

Running all 12 South London Boroughs

South London Windmill Run

December Running - Kent Vets, South of the Thames and Xmas parkrun

Kent Veterans/Masters Cross Country

Kent Veterans Cross Country Championships took place on Saturday 3rd December 2016 at Central Park in Dartford. The park, which is just next to the town centre, includes the Dartford Harriers HQ and it was good to see the recently refurbished athletics track there. The cross country course was not the wildest, much of it being run around flat playing fields to the East of the River Darent interspersed with scrambling up and down a bank (as someone said, like an international cross country event without quite the same speed). Still it was a good course for spectators as the runners were never far away. Just over 300 runners took part in the different races.

Map of Dartford course (see Strava)

The men's 40-49 was probably the most exciting, with Blackheath and Bromley's Alex Gibbins hanging on to the shoulder of last year's winner Chris Greenwood (Kent AC) before overtaking him on the finishing stretch. Kent's Phil Sanders was third and  Kent also won the club competition ahead of Medway & Maidstone AC and Tonbridge AC.

Chris Greenwood, Phil Sanders and Alex Gibbins in the lead

The M50-59 race was won by Ben Reynolds whose club Tonbridge AC were also the winning team in the seven mile race. I scored for Kent AC, who came 4th.  Not for the first time I was Mr Median for age (42nd out of 84), I was pleased that overtaking two runners in the last few hundred metres moved us up a place, but also disappointed that I didn't sustain anything like the pace of the previous week's 10K PB which would have comfortably moved us into a medal position.

Alan Camp (Blackheath and Bromley) won the M60 and David Moorekite (Larkfield AC) the M70.

Start of women's and M60 race

In the women's 35-44, Hazel Behagg  (Dartford Road Runners) was first home, with Blackheath and Bromley the winning team.  Maria Heslop (Paddock Wood AC) won the W45-54 ahead of Clare Elms whose Dulwich Runnners picked up the team prize. Victoria Talbot Rosner (Invicta East Kent AC) won the W55 and Sue James (Paddock Wood AC) the W65.

South of the Thames Senior Cross Country

This year's South of the Thames Senior Race was hosted by Kent AC at Beckenham Place Park on 17th December 2016. The Park is the venue for the new Beckenham Place parkun and the finishing line for the summer Assembly League races, but it has been a while since it featured a cross country race on this scale. Sadly the golf course in the park has recently closed down, the silver lining in the 18 hole cloud being the fact that that the whole park is now available for other activities (a lottery-funded regeneration scheme for the park is due to start shortly).  And so 290 runners set off across the former fairways at the start of the two lap, seven mile course.

Men and women run alongside each other in this race, with Phil Wicks (Belgrave Harriers) winning the men's competition ahead of Owen Hind (Kent AC), back in London on a Christmas break from a year running and studying at West Texas A&M University.  John Sanderson (Guildford & Godalming) was third. Amy Clements (Kent AC) won the women's competition, with Lucy Reid (Tonbridge) in 2nd place  and Amy's Team GB 50k colleague Samantha Ahmend (Belgrave Harriers) in 3rd. 

The Colman Cup

For the second year in a a row Kent AC men won the Dewar Shield for the 6-to-score competition, and also won the 12-to-score Colman Cup. Belgrave Harriers won the women's competition, ahead of Kent AC and Dulwich Runners (full results here)

The route - see Strava for more details

I enjoyed running the course, which did feel like a proper rural run even if it was in a South London park half way between Bromley and Lewisham.  There was a substantial hill near the start, followed by a quite technical narrow woodland path with lots of tree roots, and a couple of short but very steep banks to clamber up too.  Not to mention some very fast downhill stretches.

great photo of the race by James Turner

parkrun

I got in a few parkruns over the festive period, including Peckham Rye on Christmas Eve and Hilly Fields on Christmas Day where there there were running Santas and a glass of bubbly at the end. Amidst all the family and feasting it was good to also spend time with this friendly community of runners.

Santa sprints to the finish at Hilly Fields on Christmas Day

I finished off my 2016 running today with the New Year's Eve Brockwell parkrun in Brixton.

So that's the year done, hopefully plenty more running to come in 2017. Have a peaceful and fruitful New Year everybody, long may you run.

New Year Runs & Resolutions: Register as a Blood Stem Cell Donor

I got off to a good start to 2016 with two 5k parkruns under my belt before breakfast. New Year's Day is the only day in the year that it is possible to record two parkruns on the same day, so  by starting out at Peckham Rye at 9 am (as I did) it was possible to go on to join another run elsewhere in South London immediately afterwards - Hilly Fields and Dulwich parkruns were both scheduled to start at 10 am and Southwark Park at 10:30 am.

At Peckham Rye there were 183 runners including more than 70 experienced parkrunners who had never run at that location before, no doubt many of them looking to do the double and perhaps tick off a couple of locations on the parkrun tourist itinerary for those who try and get round to as many parkruns as possible. In fact I noticed that one of the runners was parkrun uber-tourist Chris Cowell, after whom the unofficial parkrun status of 'Cowell Club' was named for those who have run at least 100 different parkruns (Chris was the first to achieve this feat).

New Year's Day parkrun under way at Peckham Rye  - by Brucie_Baby from flickr group

Chris moved on from Peckham to Southwark Park, I went up to Hilly Fields where the 117 finishers including eight who had never run a parkun anywhere before - evidence perhaps of some New Year resolutions kicking in early.

Blood Stem Cell Donation

I got one of my New Year resolutions out of the way early too by starting the process of registering as a potential blood stem cell/bone marrow donor. I was listening to an interview recently on the Marathon Talk podcast with Melissa Fehr, who does the River Runner blog (she lives on a boat moored on the Thames in London so does plenty of running along the River).  To summarise Melissa's story:

'In 2008 I was running 30km a week, eating healthy, keeping slim, and planning my wedding. Within a fortnight I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without losing my breath and in July 2009 I had a bone marrow transplant to cure a rare blood disorder.

Unfortunately, my only brother was not a match for me, so the Anthony Nolan Trust put out a worldwide search to find someone with my specific genetics, and a young man from America donated his stem cells to save my life. After a grueling first 6 months, I was able to return to work and exercise, gradually regaining the fitness I'd had before the illness and chemo... and eventually surpassing "the old me"!

In October 2012 I ran my first full marathon in Amsterdam, finishing in 3:48. I ran my second in Copenhagen in May 2013, and after a severe bout of shingles interrupted my training, I still managed to finish in 3:52. In 2014 I ran the Virgin Money London marathon in 3:30 and the Berlin marathon in 3:46'.

Last September Melissa competed for Team GB in the World Transplant Games held in Argentina, and won five gold medals including setting a transplant athlete world record in 1500m

Naturally Mellisa is keen to encourage people to register as potential stem cell/bone marrow donors, as whether somebody can benefit from this life saving treatment depends entirely on finding somebody who is a genetic match for the patient. There are several routes to becoming a donor:

- the NHS British Bone Marrow Registry is open to donors aged 19-49. You must already be a blood donor, and if you wish to join should discuss it next time you give blood

- if you are aged 16-30 you can join the Anthony Nolan register, maintained by the charity.

- Delete Blood Cancer is an international charity, with a UK branch, which maintains a register open to people aged 18 to 55.

I have signed up via the latter, it only takes a couple of minutes to do so online. Next step is that they send a cheek swab which you return to them from which they obtain DNA details. Of course you only get called upon to actually make a donation if there is a patient in need who matches to you. Nowadays most donations are taken via a non surgical outpatient procedure where blood stem cells are collected from the donor’s blood stream, with only a minority requiring extracting cells from bone marrow via a syringe.

Just do it!

You can listen to Melissa at Marathon talk, her interview starts at about 54 minutes 30 seconds.
 

Running on Screen (10): Stick Man's Christmas Running Adventure

I've done plenty of running over Christmas, including parkruns at Hilly Fields on Christmas Day and at Peckham Rye on Boxing Day (incidentally there's a good article in today's Independent about parkrun, which features Hilly Fields and mentions my friend, chief cheerleader and Kent AC runner John Barron. See How parkrun became a global phenomenon: The free activity that has changed millions of people's lives by Genevieve Roberts).

Obviously there's more to Christmas than running - there's eating, drinking and watching TV to do too! Not too much athletics on TV at the moment, but there was one excellent running programme on British TV. I refer of course to the film version of Julia Donaldson and Axel Sheffler's children's book, Stick Man.

Truly a cautionary tale for runners everywhere, it starts:

'Stick Man lives in the family tree 

With his Stick Lady Love and their stick children three.

One day he wakes early and goes for a jog

Stick man, oh stick man, beware of the dog'

You see Stick Man and family are sentient beings just like you and I, but out in the world they get mistaken for mere lengths of wood. Stick Man suffers the indignity of a dog playing with him, a swan building her nest with him, being thrown into the river as a pooh stick and put on a fire. Worse still the narrator seems to think he is just jogging, when actually it was a threshold run. Will he ever make it back to the family tree? Thankfully (SPOILER ALERT) Santa comes to the rescue. But he could have saved his family a lot of grief if he'd taken his mobile phone with him when he left for a run.

Previously in the Running on Screen series:

Run Lola Run and running Berlin

Walford Half Marathon (Eastenders)

Race Strategy in The (US) Office
Top of the Lake and The Fall
The Running Man (1987)
Muybridge's Runner, 1887

The Casual Vacancy

From Darkness

London Spy

Winter Solstice 2015: running in with the sun

In London the sun rose at 8:04 am this morning on the Winter Solstice, marking the turning point in the year when the days start getting longer. I marked this seasonal festival with a run at a stone circle in Hilly Fields, a South East London park I have run round hundreds of times during Hilly Fields parkrun and training sessions.

The monument, made up of 12 boulders, a central flatstone, and two standing stones forming a gate outside the circle, is not as ancient as it looks. In fact it was built in 2000, with the grantite boulders being transported to the site from Mount Struie in the Caledonian Mountains, and the other stones being quarried at Weydale, Caithness at the north east tip of Scotland.

But the relationship between stone, soil, grass, tree and sky is as real there as at any ancient megalithic monument, and people have been gathering there to mark the seasons since it opened. This morning there were a couple of drummers welcoming the sun and a handful of other sunrise watchers. I did a clockwise circuit of the park (about 3k), starting and finishing in the middle of the circle, and coming back in via the stone pillar gate which faces east towards the sunrise. If I was running in with the sun it didn't actually show its face on this cloudy morning, though the sky did brighten shortly afterwards.

It was noted that the gps map of my run generated the shape of a mushroom [insert dubious theory about Hilly Fields as cult centre of fly agaric chomping shamans!]

See previously:

2013 Christmas Run at Hilly Fields

Hilly Fields parkrun and history