Nautical park is to the West of Toronto, but an easy ride from there or further East on the GO transit system. I came from Hamilton, which meant a bus journey to Aldershot to change onto the train, but that wasn’t difficult. The park is then a 4km walk, through a country park and then along main roads (with wide bike paths/pavements). The event team insisted on giving me a lift back afterwards, which was great, but it isn’t too far. There’s a bus, too, if you want to try that.
This is a new run, so has fairly low numbers in these early days. But even today, a lady arrived having spotted the signs, and will be back, and another life-time local came along after a conversation with his uncle had let him know parkrun exists. Apart from those two, it was essentially the mother and daughter show – a look at the results will prove it, because there aren’t anywhere near as many surnames as there are finishers.
The route starts on the side of the football, pitch, running away between cones and into the wooded area. It avoids the middle of the woods, which is mosquito central (as a few of us found to our cost on the way there), running down a wide grassy track to the roadside path. Heading right out of the park, you then complete two loops of this section – there’s a loop on the right of the path, whereas the other end has a cone to mark the turnaround.
The event director had suggested (at Monday’s event) I do some barcode scanning at the end, which was a nice bonus. With a small event, there’s a decent chance I’ll come in high enough up the field to make that and running possible – that wouldn’t be the case in the UK, so it was great to grab the opportunity. And it meant being able to see everyone and chat to them, even if only briefly.
There are houses all around this new park, with its new parkrun, so over time this event should grow nicely, though I’m sure it will keep its ‘outside the big city’ feel.
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