Probably my prettiest course

The third parkrun write-up!

01/08/26 : Roosevelt Island DC 

Heading back in time to August we come to an event which it's very unlikely I'll ever do again (but never say never!). But first, some background as to how I came to be there - and where there actually is!

As a reward for our youngest doing her GCSEs she was offered a trip to the US to watch a WNBA game (it's fair to say she's a BIG fan) - which sounds like a nice offer on our part but resulted in a whole load of soul searching for her because she couldn't decide who to support and hence what her preferred destination was. EVENTUALLY, the Washington Mystics were settled upon as the team of choice and hence she & I found ourselves heading over there for a few days at the end of July. And one of those days was a Saturday, so obviously the opportunity to experience an American parkrun had to be taken advantage of.

There are three parkruns in the greater DC area, but the Roosevelt Island event was easily the closest, with a metro ride of a few stops getting me (just me - Isobel was quite happy tucked up in bed, thank you) to within a pleasant ten minute walk of the start line, taking me down to the banks of the Potomac and then over a bridge that took me to - go on, guess where?!?

Theodore Roosevelt Island sits in the middle of the river, with the Lincoln Memorial on one side and Arlington Cemetery on the other - and a very pretty little island it is too. It is a monument to, well you can probably guess, and features a large statue of him situated amongst forest and marsh land with a lovely boardwalk which I explored prior to the run and saw a whole load of wildlife, including the cutest tiny deer.

The island is only just over 2 km in circumference, but the parkrun route has been carefully planned to start at one side and loop around the island such that only one lap is required and there are very few points where two way traffic occurs. The race briefing took place in a beautiful glade with dappled sunlight, with visitors announcing themselves from Brighton, Nottingham, Scotland and Ireland - I reckon Europeans made up about 10% of the runners! There were also a decent number of volunteers compared to the number of runners - the course required quite a lot of marking out, but it was all done very professionally.

And then we were off, running down an incline - which, of course, meant we'd be finishing coming back up it, but the course was generally pretty flat with only 12m of elevation across the entire course. It was a mix of trail paths which varied from packed earth to reasonably large pebbles and the boardwalk, which was mostly lovely to run on, except for the odd plank which had seen better days and made you feel quite uncertain (but I guess it was safe enough given we were in the land of the litigious). It was mostly wide and straight though with only gentle bends and slopes and a relatively low (97) number of runners, so I was able to maintain a constant and good (for me) pace - and although it was warm at 26 degrees C (probably my hottest parkrun ever), there was a reasonable amount of shade so things certainly could have been worse.

All of which resulted in a finishing time of 28:06, which was decent enough for me at the time without being spectacular - but I came 25th, which is, to this day, the highest placing I've ever managed along with my highest age category placing of third (and 24th male overall) and a decent age grading of 56.11%. And I obviously also made progress on quite a few location based challenges given it was my first parkrun in a new country (but not my first in that continent!).

To be honest though, this wasn't so much about the time because it was just the prettiest course - maybe not the most scenic (we'll be coming to that one soon) but it was just soooo cute (and very well organised and friendly as well). This is currently the furthest event I've done from home, being approximately 5,893km away - Google Maps tells me it's approximately eleven hours travelling time, but you'd be doing well to get through the DC customs queues in that time on some days, I reckon. So I certainly wouldn't recommend you make the journey just for the parkrun, but if you're in the area then it's well worth popping in. And I actually really enjoyed Washington as a whole, so if my daughter insists we have to go back and watch the Mystics again, then who am I to argue? I'm also intrigued as to how many people rock up on a snowy winter's morning - I reckon I could easily beat 25th (on account of there probably being about that many people running it).