Millhouses parkrun – Event 17 – 2024

Having completed any event in Great Britain directly to the West of home, (Except Birkenhead), travel for the rest of the year will be either North, South, or East.

My parkrun map with the completed events hidden

And so it was that on a frosty but sunny Saturday morning, I headed over to the wrong side of the Pennines with Sheffield being my destination. On this day, I was on my todd, solo, not even Luna to keep me company, as Millhouses parkrun does not allow dogs.

My touring this year has been great, not just to run new events, or to spend time with Friends and Family, but also I get to visit areas I have great memories.

Sheffield is an area where I’ve had some epic nights out with friends, seen some brilliant gigs (Def Leppard at Don Valley Stadium, Paul Weller + 9 support acts, also at Don Valley) and visited for work purposes with great positive vibes. It’s where a friend “accidentally” pushed me though a hedge on a night out, it’s where I tasted one of the best Sausage Rolls I’ve ever eaten in my life (not a Euphemism), and I vividly remember driving around the Sheffield Ring Road in April 2010 (to a night out) when the football commentary on the radio (back when I used to listen to the radio) excitedly informed us that Paul Scholes had scored a header in injury time meaning that Manchester United had beaten Manchester City 1-0 which kept us on Chelsea’s heals into the final weeks of the season. I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated so hard behind the wheel before or since.

The drive across to Sheffield is always fun on the Snake or Woodhead passes and the weather for this journey was perfect.

As you can see in the graphic below, Sheffield has a great group of 6 parkruns at the moment, all of which are on my plan for this year.

Map of Sheffield parkruns curtesy of the Running Achievements app

The park was easy to find with plentiful parking in the cark park, or on the road next to the park. Arriving in plenty of time (it’s a sickness) I had a wander about. It was easy to find the start line and I hovered around the volunteers.

As I was stood there, Richard introduced himself to me and we got to chatting. After explaining our parkrun backgrounds, he talked about some of the challenges they were having. Millhouses parkrun is relatively new at 140ish events, but they are already attracting somewhere around 350 – 400 runners and walkers. Richard explained that one of the benefits of setting up Millhouses was that it would take a bit of pressure off Endcliffe which was already becoming large.

I knew where this story was going though. New events rarely take significant numbers of runners away from more established local events, sure some people move to an event which is closer to home, or to an event which better suits their running needs (Maybe they prefer the terrain at the new run), but parkruns are communities and once people become part of a parkrun event, on the whole they tend to stick with them. Even if new events attract a few people to switch to them, both the old and new events continue to grow and after a year or two the original event (in this case Endcliffe) is larger than when the younger event started anyway.

Richard asked me to let him know if I could offer any pointers on their event. I’m always reluctant to do this unsolicited as events have their own ways of working and don’t always take kindly to advice, but I said I’d keep an eye out.

The First Timer’s Welcome was useful, and we then lined up in what seemed like a very large field before we were released, and I immediately noticed that Strava on my watch was auto paused. I have this “helpful” feature turned off usually, but somehow it’d become switched on again, so as I started running, I found the settings and switched it off again.

Millhouses park is very nice with a small boating lake, hockey pitch, flower gardens, and lots of green space. There’s a stream which runs alongside it and a Trainline. I really enjoyed running it.

The course is three flat laps in really nice surroundings, however while most of the paths are wide enough, there are a number of pinch points which become congested, especially as you get into laps 2 and 3. A couple of the pinch points are bridges over the stream which come really early in the first lap, and then a couple more are corners. There is an opportunity to stretch out on the out and back section each lap though.

I could quickly see what Richard had been talking about though, with so many people on the course, the flat nature of the course was counteracted by the narrow parts of the course.

I could also see why Dogs are not allowed, even with dogs on a short handheld lead, there’s a real risk of someone tripping. I have run with Luna on lapped courses which were similarly narrow at points, and I’ve had to work really hard to make sure that Luna is not going to create problems with other runners, Clitheroe Castle’s 5 laps springs to mind.

BUT, Millhouses it’s still a great place to run, especially when the weather is as beautiful as it was today. The volunteers were friendly and the park is a real hidden gem. Talking to Richard afterwards where he asked if I had any tips, I couldn’t offer anything which I thought would improve the congestion.

Pursuing my current Run/Walk strategy on a congested course (who am I kidding, as if anyone else slowed me down) my 45:35 was OK.

If you want to experience a relatively young parkrun with lots of energy, this is the one.

Challenges Progressed

• parkruns completed in 2024 – 17/17 available
• Cowell Club – 86th Event out of 100
• Yorkshire Region – 9/64

Next 4 planned parkruns

• 27th April – Birkenhead
• 4th May – Bowling park
• 9th May – Amager Faelled (Copenhagen)
• 11th May – Sheffield Castle