CALAMVALE PARKRUN REVIEW

GETTING THERE

In March this year, I ran the Calamvale Parkrun. I took the Gateway toll road to get there and wound my way through Sunnybank Hills and Algester to reach Ormskirk Street. I had to drive around a bit to find the entrance but ended up following some other cars. It only took me about 25 minutes to get there and I managed to get there pretty early which was a good thing because there wasn’t a lot of parking in that particular car park.

PARKING

As I said, the Ormskirk St car park didn’t have many spaces but there are other parking spots as well as street parking so parking isn’t really a problem.

TOILETS

The entire facility looks relatively new and the toilet block is in really good condition. The Calamvale District Park must attract quite a few people because the toilet block is quite big when you compare it to many of the other places I have run. The block was lovely and clean.

THE COURSE

I actually didn’t know what to expect when I arrived. I bumped into a mate from River City Runners and after the briefing, we walked to the start which was a little bit away. I discovered that this was a two and a half lap course. We started off running towards Benhiam St and left onto Ormskirk St along the council footpath after running on a short section of boardwalk. We then turned left again and ran along the road leading to the car park where we passed the central hub.

The next loop took us out to Algester St and left into Formby and again I found myself on the narrow council sidewalks. I turned back into the park and ran past the start again before repeating the figure of eight. On the return trip, I repeated the shorter loop of the eight before finishing near the picnic tables.

So in total, I worked out that I must have passed the core intersection five times not including the start. Whilst the actual park grounds are quite pretty, the council pathways are narrow and it is basically like running in the burbs. Fortunately, there weren’t any members of the public on these paths, but overtaking slower runners needed a bit of care.

It is not a particularly fast course or it doesn’t seem to attract the speedsters. I am not sure. I have seen some events draw runners who can run easily under 17 minutes but this hasn’t happened here yet.

VOLUNTEERS

The lady run director was amazing. She was engaging and full of energy. The community spirit was really good here. Like all Parkruns, the Facebook page has frequent requests for volunteers but they seem to fill them which is a credit to the community spirit. We were put through a short warm-up session which was fun and there was good participation in the briefing and recognition of milestones.

There were volunteers out on the course so I didn't get lost.  I wasn't too sure about turning into Formby St, but I just followed the faster folk in front of me. 

PHOTOS

I found the Facebook page to be very well organized. The photos of each week are well labeled so it was really easy to find my pictures. Because it is a figure of eight course, the photographer doesn’t have to move far to get different shots and the ones that were taken were really good.

Click here for the Facebook page

THE ALL IMPORTANT COFFEE AFTERWARDS

The Parkrun page recommends Zarraffas which is situated in the Calamvale Shopping Centre. Whilst I know Zarraffas to be a really cool franchise, I decided to just go home this time so I can’t really comment on the coffee, but it is really cool to have them fairly close to the event.

OVERALL 

So if I were to look at the big picture, I would say that the most positive asset that this event has is the remarkable group of volunteers. They were engaging and full of fun. The course however is a bit slow and very boring. There were parts that were quite pretty, such as the stretch on the boardwalk just before entering Benhiam St, but the narrow council paths and the two and a half loops were not that fun. Overall, I have to give this event a 7/10.