Clair parkrun - event 609

Clair parkrun

On the 20th June 2026 I ran the Clair parkrun which was the 609th event held at the venue, my 293rd parkrun and 205th different course I'd attended.

I had been putting off Clair parkrun for the longest time. It sat out quite obviously on the map as I visited parkruns around it and left it increasingly isolated as I avoided it like the plague.

Originally I had planned to visit St Alban's parkrun, but Foordy didn't fancy another trail course and he rightly pointed out that my ankle wouldn't appreciate it if I twisted it again having still been in recovery from the week before.

By rights I shouldn't have ran at all, but my addiction needs to be fed and so I compromised with Foordy. I'd fine him a nice tarmac based course, but found him a course I could walk around if the need may be.

Clair parkrun fit all of the criteria. What was four laps on tarmac around an undulating course which a former work colleague had labelled disgusting was an opportunity for me to walk around a course and avoid the hills with a teddy made excuse in waiting.

As you may know, hills are evil and running up them is a masochistic pastime. Why would I volunteer myself to do that not once, not twice, but four times?

Foordy didn't seem to mind, he quite relished the challenge of four laps of pain and torture. I was looking forward to making excuses!

Upon arrival at Clair park in Horsham I was pleasantly surprised. The tight and compact park was as I'd seen it on YouTube, but the reality in the flesh didn't look quite so bad as I was lead to believe.

The park sits in a natural bowl. The flat cricket pitch size park is surrounded by hilly pathed terrain where the parkrun took place on four and a half laps around it. Starting at the top next to.the club house participants run slightly uphill to the highest part of the course.

Starting on a wide path that runs across the top of the park, the course turns right onto a narrow path that filters and slows people down very quickly. There wasn't a huge turnout, so congestion wasn't severe. I can imagine on busier days traffic being a real problem.

This section of the course is well under the cover of trees and leads up to the far corner of the course and the highest point. From here the path turns right again and heads down hill all the way to the bottom end of the park, disappearing into a dip, almost out side of the park behind some cricket nets before coming back into the park via a short, sharp incline.

This incline, steep in nature and a challenge in itself is certainly surmountable. It's done four times in total and does get progressively harder, but it doesn't drag on for long enough that it becomes too tough to crack.

After my third lap, and third time up the hill and having ran the full distance my ankle asked for help. The undulating nature of the course meant that my foot was placing a lot of different stress on the dodgy part of my ankle. Pointing downwards when running downhill and adding pressure on the inclines I did actually need to slow down to a walk. I was beating the course that I had developed an aversion to, realised it wasn't as bad as I was lead to believe but couldn't tame it due to injury.

I finished in 99th position out of a field of 131 participants in a time of 34:08.

It's funny, spending all this time avoiding a course due to perception, but the reality was so different that I'm actually now wanting to desperately go back again when I'm fit and well to give it a proper go!

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