Woolacombe Dunes Parkrun
Yes, this is the hardest parkrun we’ve ever done.
Yes it’s one of the toughest in the country. There’s a reason for that…
I’m going to caveat this with a few points before I get into the course description…
Myself and BabyGurl are quite experienced buggy runners having run across many trails and miles together over the years.
She is also an epic runner in her own right. At just three years old, she’s already doing juniors and the day before this, we went on an epic hike around the coastal path with me (and no buggy) so I’m confident that she could walk (or run) parts of this parkrun if needed and if she wanted to.
Thirdly, you can walk parkrun. Everyone thinks you have to run - but you do not. There is a lot to be said for bringing people into our community if they could start with a walk…
Fourth, safety advice - I would never do this with a newborn. Nor even with a non walking baby. As above, I know babygurl could get out and walk if needed - but there’s too many dodgy bits (see description below) that would just not be safe with a younger child (in my opinion)
Fifth - if you do do it - a safety wrist strap would be highly recommended!
Right, just like parkrun, safety briefing over… let’s get into the review…
After being warmly received by the lovely organiser team all offering some great advice, then a number of “you’re never getting round that mate” type of comments, we warmed up ready for the go.
We start from near the back - out of choice I may add, but I didn’t want to slow anyone up if we had to walk. (distances all approximate)
The first 400m is a lovely all be it slightly bumpy gravel track. We turn down a fairly steep, slightly sandy decline and I’m thankful for my super grippy traily’s at this point! A tight turn and we start running along the south west coastal path, covered in sand, but it feels doable. I definitely knew it was a workout at this point!
A few encouraging comments of “looks like you’re going to earn your breakfast this morning” possibly because they knew what lay ahead as in about another 100m the buggy came to a complete stand still. A foot deep in sand, the best I could do was push on. One comment motivated me… “you should just walk back to the top…” Others were far more encouraging!
When someone says I can’t do something, it only spurs me on to try a little harder and today, we tried pretty hard…
The next section (about 1.5km in) descending down onto the beach is incredibly narrow and gets steep in places. Definitely some two wheeled action at points - You need a good grip here on both the buggy and underfoot - it would be easy to lose control if you’re not concentrating. It’s definitely a bumpy ride!
Onto the sand, we make the 100m dash through the soft sand onto the low tide hardened sand. FINALLY we get to “run fast”.
The RD said this was a mile stretch so we looked forward to opening up the stride and catching up on our pace. We ran past horses, caught up a few places and…and… we hit the soft sand again.
This is why this parkrun is hard for buggies. You need the strength of an ox to keep moving through this soft soft sand and not wanting to stop we pushed on.
That and a BabyGurl who’s up for hopping out and running herself!!
We reach the Dune of Doom… wow. Just wow.
BabyGurl starts to climb by herself, I drag the buggy up backwards. There is absolutely no way you could push a buggy (safely) up this slope!! BabyGurl had a break half way up, we move on… we get to the top. I can’t put enough words together to describe this section - it’s steep, Sandy and every step forward feels like you’re taking two back - brutal may be a good word. But not impossible.
Back on the SWCoastPath, it’s a mixture of soft sand and hard packed trail so BabyGurl alternates between buggy rides and running herself, but this part of the course is quite beautiful as you run through the ferns and beautiful sand dune forna.
We reach the more compact last 500m of fairly steep uphill track, BabyGurl climbs in again and off we go to the finish.
The Marshall’s were absolutely amazing with their encouragement - we can’t thank them enough as were the people hanging about at the finish to see if we would make it. The cheers for the final uphill push were amazing to hear.
One of my slowest parkruns to date, but it doesn’t really matter… it was one of my most memorable runs with BabyGurl yet. ❤️
Woolacombe Dunes parkrun… we’ll be back (although maybe no buggy next time 😂)
Watch the video here