Nansenparken parkrun
Nansenparken is to the West of Oslo in the middle of new developments on the site of the old airport. There are markings for the runway in the park, and plenty of building round the edge. None of that affects the loop used for the run at the moment, and nor did the rain and snow on the day.
For those of us here, this was an extra event for Norway’s parkrun special event on Labor Day, the first time it has happened. This event was slightly less well-attended than the two more central events at Tøyen and Ekebergsletta, but had a healthy number of finishers - 1 fewer than the previous Saturday, and just a handful fewer than the record from March.
The bus from the centre (31 for me) takes a little while. That bus also runs from further North of the city, where I was staying, so I was able to sit on the same bus for 40 minutes and head directly to the start, picking up participants on the way. Luckily for us, some locals also used the same bus, so we just followed them to the course, though it is simple enough to find.
The course is simple to follow, with well-placed arrows marking the way. The start is slightly off-set from the finish, but you can see the meeting place as soon as you get near, so there’s no trouble finding it. It’s near the Festplassen, for which you can see a marker in one of the images below - that marker is off to the right of the picture below, which shows the finish funnel marked by cones and a handy gazebo for this wet day.
The cafe in the nearby shopping centre had been warned we’d been coming, and opened when nothing else was. It seemed worth their while, so that seems a promising relationship. It’s nearer to the bus back, too, which is handy for when you realise you’re 40 minutes from a shower and need to dash back.
The volunteers were happy to greet us all, pleased by the interest in their run and happy to see numbers grow a little. The event is getting a handy few participants now out of the colder months in any case, though the thought of running it on snow was very tempting - it would probably be no colder than this day, and without rain we’d probably have felt warmer.
The welcome and the chat in the cafe warmed us all up in any case, and this is a straightforward, well-run and lovely event. Use the Ruter app to check schedules and buy a ticket for the transit system if you’re coming.
Results from Nansenparken parkrun #66, 1/5/23; 68 finishers.