Race Report: Fælledparken Parkrun 06/04/2013

When I told Mik that I was going to Copenhagen to visit our mutual friend Dave, his first response, of course, was to send me the link to www.parkrun.dk and ask me not to forget the race report!

Me listening to the pre-race briefing in Danish, while everyone else wonders what sort of idiot wears short sleeves in April

So a few weeks later Dave drove me over to Fælled park in the centre of Copenhagen. I had a slight back injury but didn’t want to let that stop me running my first international race. The park was around half a mile square with several roads running through it. There were lots of runners about, and the Danes all speak such good English that even if you ask them “Undskyld mig venligst” they’ll reply in English. Unfortunately most of them weren’t there for the park run & didn’t know where it started, so I had a slightly worrying 10 minutes while I ran a long warm up before finding the start line. Dave arrived with the camera a few minutes later.

Lining up at the start

The setup is exactly the same as any other park run. There’s a 2 minute briefing, presentation of the 50 run T-shirts, welcome to anyone from another Parkrun (which was in Danish so of course I missed it!). The organiser then repeated it all to me in English while everyone else was lining up at the start, then after a shout of “tre to en” the horn went off and we were away. 

And we’re off

The course is very fast, the park is completely flat and the course is all on hard gravel paths. The conditions were good as well, it was cold, dry and not much wind. The spring thaw was well under way so there was no snow on the paths but there was a bit on the grass and the lake was still frozen. Unusually for a parkrun there were a lot of people coming the other way, but with only 60 or so entrants the race wasn’t crowded at all. There was an official photographer on every lap (don’t know where the photos are posted), and Dave cropped up with the camera a couple of times as well. The only real obstacle we had to dodge was cyclists, two cycle paths crossed the course and the cyclists weren’t keen on slowing down for us.

Crossing the finish line

By the time I was on the last lap the stiffness in my back had gone (it came back before the end of the morning) and I could start pushing myself a bit more. With only 60 entrants we were all spread out at the end, and when I crossed the finish line there were no other runners near me. The barcode system is the same as normal, and UK parkrun barcodes work in Denmark. I ended up 11th with a time of 19:44, so I was pleased to have got under the 20 minute mark again. If I go back to Copenhagen for a weekend, I’ll definitely run it again.

Middle of the second lap

With thanks to Dave for the photos and Google Translate for the Danish.

For more information visit www.parkrun.dk

Martin