Unisee parkrun
Bremen, Germany
The locals have been telling me that Bremen always has terrible weather, but this was a cool sunny morning turning into a distinctly warm and sunny day, under pale blue skies. It showed the swimming lake around which we ran and walked to best effect. That lake is slightly prettier when seen from a distance, or from the far side, where the furniture and distant factory are less in your face, but it’s not un-scenic from the start, either.
I spotted a couple of people in 250-shirts warming up, but only when they came past for the second time did I realise I knew one of them. Rodney from Bushy was getting a preview of the course from his local friend, so as to not go wrong in a bid to go quickly.
He did go wrong, and quite quickly. But he didn’t mind because the person who had been in second place behind him ran (perhaps with extra motivation, worrying where that Englishman had gone) his fastest time by over 40 seconds, to dip under 17 minutes, which Rod didn’t reckon he’d have matched on the day. The whole thing was (apart from the pace) absolutely something I would have done - yes, yes, got it, easy. Oops, wrong turn, haven’t seen this open area before!
Before the start I was distracted by chatting, and Rod’s friends were keeping out of the way of the event team having fallen out with them, so I missed the first briefing and any chance to ask why you run first one lap clockwise, turn around a tree and then go back the other way. It makes for a chance to see everyone, and that’s a good enough reason on its own. The record attendance is 64 (event 100, 1/10/22) so there has always been room - with a couple of hundred I’d consider straightforward laps. But it’s none of my concern, and I welcomed the variation and lack of dizziness.
For all the entertainment of Rod racing off then later passing at pace (with enough breath to tell me why!) it’s an easy enough course to follow. Possibly there is a turn that isn’t signed or coned, soon after going into the wooded section 500m or so after the start, but essentially you’re following the path round the lake, staying near to it, and there are signs and we had a marshal cheering us on. Anyone who wants to cheer can stay at the turnaround point, catching people at halfway and then at the finish.
The meeting point is next to the turnaround, with the start further back down the path towards the (large, free) car park. There are no facilities in the park, though it’s not too far from the town - from me, near the central station, it was a lovely 4km walk almost entirely through the Burgerpark.
The course is as near to flat as I can remember a course being, though the record shows 8m of elevation, so it’s not quite Dutch-flat. I don’t have any memory of an incline, though, and it’s a good surface all round. That surface does change, from hard-packed mud to gravel via brick tiled path. I don’t remember the order, just that there’s plenty of all of it. It’s a little narrow in places, but we had no problem in a group of 3-4 when passing runners coming the other way, so long as we were paying attention.
The surroundings change, too - from open with wide views over the lake to sheltered and shaded sections, sometimes without a lake view. Plenty of trees to see instead, so it’s consistently pretty.
I hung around at the finish talking to people who had moved from England to Germany. Finding people who have moved from one to the other, and miss England, has been something of a theme of my time here, though I can’t yet categorise Bremen as England-loving since I had actively sought out Anglophiles by heading to the English club (open Weds and Friday, next to the station, a warm welcome guaranteed for English speakers). Still, I was very aware that here there were plenty of people speaking English, most of them at least bilingual, which made it homely for English speakers without being overrun by actual-English parkrunners.
I’m sure the course is lovely in any weather, but on a sunny day running round a lake and then wandering both ways through a large park - yes, please, fill my cup up with more.
Results from Unisee parkrun #133, 27/5/23; 46 finishers.