CLEVELAND PARKRUN REVIEW

GETTING THERE

I’ve run this event twice and on both occasions, I drove from Carindale through Capalaba to Cleveland and ended up parking along Kassandra St. The start is really easy to find. There is only one shelter on the left of the pathway and it was well marketed with banners and a substantial gathering of colourful runners.

PARKING

Even though there isn’t a designated carpark, there was sufficient street parking. I did manage to park a fair distance from the start, but it certainly wasn’t a problem. It was more like an opportunity to warm up.

TOILETS

There is a fairly modern and clean toilet block close to the start, which is fantastic. It is fairly small in comparison to Wynnum, but my goodness me, arrive a little early and it won’t be a problem.

THE COURSE

This course runs along the Moreton Bay cycle track in a southerly direction and enters a boardwalk, which traverses a wetland. It is an out and back course with a turnaround point at 2.5kms. There is one point along the route that has an incline on a wooden boardwalk which I found a bit steep. There is another section that winds up to Manning Esplanade, which also has a bit of an uphill hike, but it could be argued that this is part of the beauty of this event.

As in all parkrun events, the pathways are open to the public and this is no exception. Because the pathway is part of the Moreton Bay cycleway, it is indeed popular with the cycling public as well as Saturday morning walkers. With that being said, on both occasions the walkways have been quiet so this has not been a problem

The first part of the course is quite pretty. You have to actually start quite fast so that you can get to the first wooden pathway ahead of the crowds otherwise you can get caught up in the masses and lose a lot of time. This is because the boardwalk section is a bit narrow. Once you climb up to the road, the route gets a bit suburban and you could literally be running anywhere in SE Queensland. The return trip has that incline on the wooden section which can be a bit of a challenge, but I like hills so it is usually to my advantage when it comes to position. On the other hand, this is not really good for overall PB’s; this was evident in the results. On both occasions that I ran, there were very few people that were able to run under 20 minutes.

I have often wondered why I haven’t run this event more often seeing it is a similar distance from home to that of Wynnum which I consider my home event. The answer could lie in the  event history which shows me that this event seldom attracts more that 200 participants and there are only three men who have managed to run under 17 minutes.

VOLUNTEERS

What this course loses in some areas, it gains when it comes to the community spirit that has been very carefully cultivated by the run directors and their teams. On both occasions, I have been tremendously impressed with the enthusiastic and obviously committed group of ladies that have made this their home base. They make the entire experience a lot of fun and in my opinion, if there was a competition for the best group of volunteers, then Cleveland Parkrun would be right up there.

Special attention was given to people who had reached milestones and it seemed like they knew many members of the community.

There were marshals on the course and the people at the table were really friendly. Honestly, I couldn’t fault this.

PHOTOS

The excellent community spirit is again reflected in the Facebook page. It is well organized. The photo section is expertly documented and it is really easy to find yourself on the days that you participate. There are also many photos uploaded each week. Well done.

Click here for the Facebook page

THE ALL IMPORTANT COFFEE AFTERWARDS

Okay so you can’t be perfect. There was no coffee van near the start/finish but I am not surprised seeing that there are probably events that attract greater numbers. We drove to the shopping center on the corner of Marshall Drive and Shore St West and started off at one café. After ordering, we found out that the coffee machine had packed up so we moved to another one. By the time we had finished, it was nearly 10:00am.

OVERALL 

On the downside, even though this course is right next to the shore, there are very few vantage points that overlook the bay. The two inclines make it difficult to get a fast time. On the other hand, I think that the community support here is one of the best I have seen so far. So the Gary rating for this event is 7.5/10.