Way back in late 2014 when my son first began getting interested in running we started looking for events he could get involved in. Almost by accident (it was much less well known then) we stumbled across our local park run. Reasoning that I would have to drive him there and it would be a good way of maintaining fitness I also began taking part.

More than ten years later we have both completed hundreds of such runs at locations across the United Kingdom and even as far as Poland. This coming weekend we will be travelling out to Lithuania to participate in their recently inaugurated event. Our shared enthusiasm has survived both the long Covid lockdown and my sons three year stint at university.

As anyone familiar with park run will know the underlying ethos is that it is a run not a race and as its popularity has grown the average finish time has increased massively. So the challenge or motivation of each park run is purely down to whatever the individual wants it to be. In the case of my son and I amongst many other things (Park Run A to Z, for example), that has still encompassed the aim of finishing the five kilometre course in a personal best time.

To that end there is a list published (shown above) which ranks all of the UK’s park runs in difficulty order from fastest to slowest. If you were chasing a personal best there is one stand out candidate to try. The lure eventually proved too much for us and, despite it being over three hours from our usual park run, this is how we found ourselves departing the Midlands at 445am on one of the longest days of the years to pit ourselves against Pegwell Bay park run.

We had allowed an hours worth of contingency for the journey which involved a brush with both the M25 and the Dartford Tunnel. Amazingly none of the contingency was required though and therefore we were unsurprisingly first in the car park (that we were soon to discover was right next to the start line) at just before 8am.

This gave us ample time to explore the area. It’s certainly a beautiful part of the world, however it is currently under threat and there are numerous posters on the site urging you to sign a petition to make sure the proposed work doesn’t happen.

Our pre run stroll basically turned out to be a lap of the park run course. You end up doing this twice for the run itself. We had viewed the course before via You Tube videos so knew it wasn’t a runner’s paradise of five kilometres straight down a steep gradient. Even so being veterans between us of some of the other noted faster park run venues such as Walsall, Long Eaton, Bromley and Rushcliffe, there wasn’t anything noticeably different about the Pegwell route that would make it faster than any of those.

And so it was to prove. Additionally, there was little cloud, no natural shade and plenty of sun on the part of the course exposed to the sea, which while lovely for holiday makers, doesn’t help the runner. My son did cross the finish line first which counted as a nice bonus, it’s a run not a race remember. He fell short of his personal best though and although I finished in my second quickest ever time it was five seconds short of a personal best.

So what is it that gives Pegwell Bay its fastest ranking? The answer came via my son’s Garmin which revealed the course length to be 4750 metres, so a pretty substantial 250 metres short of the prescribed length. Further investigation reveals that has been the case since 2017. This is when work took place on the Nemo Link which connects Richborough Energy Park to Belgium, the required cable being run straight through Pegwell Bay Country Park. Ultimately this meant the course needed to be modified but the overall layout of the park left no options to keep it at the correct length. Apparently this current and now long standing position has been approved by park run headquarters.

The drive back proved rather more challenging than the journey down. The time being extended from the estimated three hours to nearly five hours due to a bad accident on the motorway. On reflection I think after all the effort to reach and return from Pegwell Bay we were both actually relieved we didn’t set personal bests. There would always be the knowledge the course isn’t the full distance. Having said that the run takes place in a beautiful part of the world with fantastic views along the way and is still absolutely worth a visit.