Preston Park parkrun - event 612

Preston Park parkrun

On the 8th August 2026 I ran Preston Park parkrun, which was the 612th event held at the venue, my 299th parkrun and 210th different course I'd attended.

We are almost into September and I've fallen a bit behind with my parkrun travels reporting.

Having accumulated a fair amount of leave during the year taking some time off during August has messed with my routine. I normally run parkrun on Saturday, create a draft when I get home and write the post on Mondays train trip home from the office. But with no office attendance throughout August I've not found an alternative window to sit and type.

My visit to Preston Park was without drama, a straightforward Saturday morning of rolling out of bed and making out towards parkrun. No hangover, no traffic and nothing else to note.

Preston Park is in Brighton and was the fourth of five events that I've taken part in the city. It's the second oldest event after the OG Brighton and Hove and takes place in a part of the city I am familiar with.

The park is situated just down the road from the Withdean Athletics stadium which was home to Brighton and Hove Albion for several years before they settled in at the AMEX. I have two contrasting memories of the Withdean, the first was watching Kevin James score a last minute winner, running the full length of the pitch, across the athletics track and jumping into the adoring away fans. The referee had his second yellow.card and red card out as soon as he could reducing the Gills down to 9 men. We went from delirium to anger just as quickly and all kinds of hell went lose.

The second visit was less pleasant, a new years day visit in freezing cold conditions. We arrived late, there wasn't any seats left and so we had to sit on the floor in the aisle. Made worse my the fact it was a temporary stand, made out of metal which was literally frozen solid. We lost, was rubbish and pretty much a dreadful day.

Anyway, aside from my visit down memory lane, I travelled a little bit further and parked on the road adjacent to Preston Park.

The course itself was two and a half laps of a fairly straightforward and simple course. Shaped like a 'P', the course starts in the middle of the round part of the letter. Travels upwards and down the length of the spine, before returning back up via a U-turn and travelling back along the way you came.

After reaching the start again, the route continues down the round part, back to the spoke and back down the spine to the foot where it repeats the lap two more times.

If you imagine turning the letter 'P' onto it's back, that would reflect the orientation of the course, whilst imagining that it was slightly on a slope. The spine part is flat, but the round part travels slightly up hill for the first part and slightly downhill for the second.

Alternatively you could look at the map on the course page and make it make sense!

The entire course is on tarmac and would be a fast and flowing course in ordinary conditions.

As it was, it was a boiling hot day and I was still having issues with my ankle, so for me it was a much slower and frustrating affair.

I finished in 391st place out of a field of 546 participants in a time of 32:03. 

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