Huddinge parkrun
Stockholm County, Sweden
Huddinge is a part of Stockholm County and a sizeable place in its own right with c. 110,000 inhabitants. There’s easy access via train and bus. From Stockholm City (downstairs in Stockholm Central station) it’s 14 minutes. I stayed the other end of the same line, in Södertälje, from where it was 29 minutes. It’s then just under 3km to the start of the parkrun, so I walked, though you can change onto a bus without paying any more. Tickets are available via an app, but it’s even easier to just tap your card for entry. There’s no tap out on exit, and you’ve 75 minutes to start another journey (like a bus!) from the first tap to be charged no more. The system charges you 1kr and then updates a couple of days later to the 35kr cost (or at least, it took a couple of days for me).
The route to the run is straightforward enough once you’re at the Källbrinksskolan bus stop, and it was chalk marked as above. You soon get there; I was a smidge confused to come upon people without sight on the event, but that’s because you first reach the football and tennis clubs. Head past them up the hill to the start as marked on Google maps, next to the athletics track. There are facilities there.
The route starts by some metal barriers, heading straight down the middle of the course for the first short lap, heading into the woods for the first glorious smell of pine needles. A local said they hardly notice it now, but I certainly did - I can almost smell it just looking at the pictures. The course takes you in and out of the forest, so the smell reintroduces itself a few times, which is fantastic.
The short loop is just over 1km, and is your first introduction to the ‘evil hill’ the run director had mentioned. You pop out of the middle section, turning right straight onto the hill. It’s tough, but fair - no false peaks, what you see is what you’re heading up. I’m not fit enough to take it on all three times, but was happy to attack it the first time (jogged the second, survived the third).
My theory is that it’s called the evil hill to distinguish it from all the others. This course undulates! My watch only recorded 40+ metres of elevation, which seems right - it’s not a lot of hills, just a constant rolling up and down, and one last cruel short hill before you get to the final flat stretch. There are plenty of downs, too, though, and if you’re fit this course would make a lovely test, and it’s probably not that much slower than a flat course if you can push the downhill sections. I’m equally certain it’s also the kind of course that you’ll not run your best on until you’ve had a few goes, and you definitely have to work for it.
The left section of the course is entirely in the forest, while the right has an open area after the crossing pictured higher up. At the time, this seemed a relatively barren section, but the photo above shows that it’s still surrounded by trees, and bathed in sunshine on this warm day. I was probably just missing the scent of pine needles at the time. It’s even gently downhill, so nothing to complain about.
The surface is good throughout - we’re into the small blessings here, as you climb up, run faster downhill and then anyone check yourself on one steeper section downhill. The run director positioned himself at the bottom of this steep section for the first time we went down it, which given he’d only waved us off one-kilometre’s-worth-of-minutes ago, let us know we were nearly done with the short loop, and perhaps let him check we took it safely.
Finally, after much undulation (I mentioned that, right?) I was done with the loops, and turned left for one last concrete section to the finish. Again, at the time this seemed noticeably less pretty, with the running track to the left and open skies, but it’s not unattractive at all.
On Tuesday (6/6/23), they’d had a record 99 finishers for Sweden’s National Day, but there were still several English tourists and one Norwegian (‘though not really’, someone said, so I assume they live nearby) in among the 27 finishers. Cafe Nytorp is another highlight; back down the hill and turn left to approach it from the outdoor seating area behind. It looks cute from there, but then you get to the door; inside looks almost like a hobbit home, with similar promise of plentiful food and drink.
I chatted with the event director at the end, discussing my plan to complete all 11 of the current Swedish events. Doing so won’t catch him on the Sweden Most Events page, as he has completed all those and the two that have come and gone - the neat trick of completing 13 out of 11, as he put it.
I don’t mind. The smell of pine needles will sustain me for some time to come.
Results from Huddinge parkrun #178, 10/6/23; 27 finishers