Cruising! - Southampton parkrun #568 - 12/10/24

aqasanu
Oct 25, 2024
3 min read

With a 50th wedding anniversary and 91st birthday to celebrate the Celebrity Apex awaited us at Southampton docks. Weighing in at 129,500 gross tonnes, with 15 passenger decks this behemoth of a vessel, with more bling than a Cartier store, awaited us.

With stops to Porto, Lisbon, Gran Canarias, Tenerife, Madeira and La Coruna, much joy awaited but not before a trip to Southampton parkrun, the usually second largest parkrun in England. To ensure we could attend, we arrived in Southampton on Friday booked into a hotel a 25-minute walk from the parkrun. The best way to commence an 11-night cruise 😄

This parkrun takes place on Southampton Common starting approximately 250 meters northwest of the Hawthorns Cafe. The current shape and size of this 365 acres of common land dates back 1228 with the settlement of a dispute between Nicholas de Sirlie and the Burgeses of Southampton. Perhaps this is why I have such a warm feeling towards Southampton parkrun as my home parkrun is Burgess parkrun in London :) The common officially became public park in 1844 following the Marsh Improvement Act 1844.

The trees here could tell a tale or two having witnessed public executions until 1784. It has also been the meeting place for numerous anti-racism marches I was proudly told by Jayanti, one of my fellow tail walkers.

The Common is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest with the woodland, rough grassland, ponds, wetlands and lakes all supporting an abundance of wildlife. Information about this can be found at The Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre.

The new runners welcome was conducted by Gareth with another volunteering signing. As I was told though Gareth’s legs are sometimes struggling to cover the distance, his enthusiasm was tangible and on his bike he collected all the signage as us tail walkers went past.

The common is big enough to accommodate the usual roughly 1,500 participants comfortably. Everyone arrows into the gravel path for the first clockwise lap before doing the majority of this lap again but taking a left at a well-marshalled point to do a larger anti-clockwise loop bringing you back to the start and then a sharpish right to the well-coordinated finish funnel. Experienced with large numbers this was a smoothly executed event by Matt, today’s Run Director and the volunteer team.

Matt Goss, today's Run Director, photo credit Southampton parkrun.

This course is described as fast and with the first 59 finishers all under 20mins, it lived up to its billing. However, there was plenty of support for myself and other walkers, including two first-timers to parkrun with their dog, finishing in 60mins. I simply love how everyone is appreciated, from the fastest to the leisurely.

After returning my bib and saying our goodbyes we walked back to our hotel. With some time to spare we went to the Sea City Museum and fittingly saw two exhibitions which captured the day. The first looked at the arrival of immigrants to the UK, via Southampton, back in 1971 and included accounts of Ugandans arriving from Uganda. This was fitting as today at our home parkrun, Burgess parkrun, was being run by our Ugandan community which does so to celebrate Ugandan Independence Day. It's been going for several years now and keeps getting bigger and better, you can read read about it here.

The second exhibition was about the Titanic, which I hadn't realised set sail for its fatal journey from Southampton. Of the 685 crew members from Southampton 549 died aboard. The exhibition gave a great insight into the ripple effects of the tragedy on this area. It also had a section on how this disaster had spawned many new safety features for large ships and worldwide coordination and navigation. This was very reassuring given our date with the Celebrity Apex.