Donauradweg parkrun, Linz

The meeting point for the Donauradweg parkrun is on the North side of the Danube, just next to (under if wet) the Neue Eisenbahnbrücke (New Railway Bridge). Don’t be put off by the name – it’s a pedestrian bridge, so it can be your route across if necessary. Indeed, it was part of the event route this time, though not currently marked as such on the official course page, which shows the out and back route, staying North of the river. The route I ran, as you’ll see in the comments below, turned out to be too tricky to marshal, so you now run an out and back along the North side of the river. Nothing to stop you having a run or walk across the bridges, though, and exploring the South Side.

Unfortunately for us, the usual course setter-up wasn’t there this Saturday, and we completed the first turn-around too soon. I figured it was early; we’d been told the turn was after a km or so, and I was initially impressed by how quickly the first runners were coming back at us. Then I made the turn after 100m or so more myself, was only about 600m in and thought it must be too early. Sure enough, we all got very quick times, though they might later get adjusted to fit!

The course has been changed to make it more interesting than the old out and back, and to let participants see a bit more of the river (and enjoy the climb up to the apex of the bridges) as they go. Other than the turnaround snafu, it’s certainly successful, and worth the work involved in getting permission from two different authorities. It sounded as though they were keen enough, guiding organisers through the nomenclature – parkrun is ‘official’ to us, but with no numbers etc., not so for the authorities, which makes getting permission easier. The parkrun guidelines required written permission, which was harder to get since the authorities deemed that unnecessary, but eventually they managed to make all the edges fit.

There are a couple of little climbs, including one early on – always keep to the higher path is the motto of the route. There are some tight turns, including the two 180s for the out-and-back sections, but otherwise this is a fast and flat route, if you’re not totally distracted by the river to the side.

Linz itself seemed, as I arrived by train, a very relaxed place. The railway station is a little way from the centre, which probably adds to that feeling, but despite being Austria’s third-largest city it isn’t such an obvious tourist destination as some of the others (Hitler spent his youth there and considered it his hometown, but that’s not something they make anything of) so I felt relaxed even in the city centre itself. I stayed up on one of the hills to the South of town, and walked (just under 4km) to the parkrun start though there are buses and trams nearby. There are portaloos and a drinking fountain just to the SW of the start if you need them.

Results from Donauradweg parkrun event 14, 16/7/22; 28 finishers.