Nestled in the rolling green hills adjacent to the Maleny golf course lies the hidden gem of the sunshine coast park run scene. Maleny Park Run.
As with all park runs, Maleny reflects the spirit of the community in which it is situated. And the Maleny spirit can best be described as confidently quirky. For those of you who are familiar with the eclectic street wares of the Maleny township you will know that Maleny has a none-to-subtle mix of old and new as well as a combination of shabby shek mixed with avant-garde. This inherent complexity can best be summed up with the perplexing juxtaposition of knitted telegraph poles adornments outside of multi million dollar high end properties. All things considered you can’t help but be impressed at how confident it is at being unashamedly unconventional.
While you might expect tension to rage in such a diverse community of polar opposites and high traffic tourism trade, there isn’t any (well not very much as I see it). The town simply exudes calm! The yells of the 2005 protest against the multinational Woolworths setting up camp on the banks of a known platypus sanctuary are now a distant whispered echo on the breeze. This fight between old Maleny town folk and the pace of progress was a hard fought one which saw both walk away battered and bruised and both claiming a victory of sorts. Woolworths does now sit on the banks of the platypus creek but progress was halted and Maleny took control of its own pace of change and they heavily invested in peace and calm as the currency of their future.
What has this introduction got to do with the Maleny park run? As always the purpose of this introduction is to put in you connection with the spirit of the community that you will be running with when you toe the line of Maleny park run. While I understand many of you have clicked on this link to get some information about the Maleny course or the directions to the venue or even thought you were clicking on the parkrun web page, I have sadly left you hanging and no doubt many have not read this far. And for this I do not apologize. Running for me is cerebral. It is a marriage between body and mind. And the place we run is the background where these two join together. Think of the place you run as the place you get married. Some may decide on a Vegas ceremony with Elvis as the celebrant while others prefer a beach venue at sunset. Whatever is chosen it is fair to say that the destination matches the spirit of the union which it backdrops. In extending the marriage analogy it might be fair to say that Maleny Park run is the equivalent of getting married by Vegas Elvis on a sandy beach in front of a rainforest. Something is just not right but it works because it is unconventional. You can’t help but smile and love it.
Without any further adieu let's get into the nuts and bolts of the most picturesque Park Run on the sunshine coast. As always all the information about Maleny Park Run can be found on their Park run web page. It is simply my goal throughout these reviews to give you a view of the run through my unique perspective. I will break this into a number of sections which will include general feel, the course, my final thoughts followed by the mandatory post mortem coffee scene. Let’s start by looking at the general feel, pre-race.
General feel
As stated in the introduction Maleny Park run is all about peace and calm and embracing its spirit of being confidently quirky. At time of publication of this article, Maleny park run has been held 61 times and I have run in 11 of them. The average number of finishers per race is 57 and it has an equally modest average finish time of 35 minutes and a record time of 17:33 for the male and 19:47 for the female. While the course is undulating I wouldn’t say it is slow as these times indicate. I would suggest that these statistics are more in keeping with the spirit of calm that hits the field after the first kilometer and also the Covid pandemic that has stifled the travel aspirations of many of the quicker park run tourists.
The course is run along the Maleny Trail, Parklands Drive via Porters Lane, Maleny, QLD 4552. Of the 36 runners that started Maleny parkrun #61 no one was from out of the community. This is obviously an indicator of the times that we live in and also an indicator of the fact that this gem is incredibly difficult to find. Of the 11 Maleny park runs that I have done, each had a modest field and if I was to describe the average clientele it would be a mix of rural professionals. As I glanced around the most recent field I noted a mix of what could be summarized as local bankers, country lawyers, agronomists, retired tree changers and a lot of people that own running dogs. Let me change that, incredibly fit and fast running dogs. So fit in fact that a dog was the winner of one park run (#45) that I attended. As the incredible beast loped past me at the turn around point dragging its owner to a remarkable sub 20 winning time I could only look on in admiration. I quickly dismissed my jealousy and refrained from yelling something stupid and unfunny about canine assistance as I saw how much fun the dog and the owner were having. Maleny also extends its love for animals by having a couple of horses in the paddock beside the start line that love to be patted and be hand fed grass. I have been tempted to bring some carrots and apples for them but have not followed through with this as I didn’t want to turn up to the race with an arm full of fruit and vegetables and suddenly find no horses.
The Course
Like all park runs the course is 5km long and in terms of GPS accuracy it runs pretty true to distance. The forest covers ¾ of the course and it does cut back on itself which may affect the overall final reading.
The start of the race has an amazing downhill field run alongside the Maleny golf Course. Think charge of the light brigade minus the guttural yells of murderous intent and the horses simply observing from the side lines looking bemused rather than being whipped into battle pace. I can honestly say that it is the best start of any park run on the sunshine coast. The backdrop, the feeling of speed generated from the downhill slope and the springy grass protecting your knees and propelling your forward make you think that you have a PB on the cards for today. This feeling of PB continues as you run onto the Maleny trail path, past the platypus observation deck and onto the fast concrete path that skirts the horse paddock. You feel like a million dollars. I guarantee that you will feel like you are running incredibly well. But…… let me pause at this point and say that my PB is 20:03 for 5k (yes I know, agonizingly close to the magic sub 20) and I usually run 4:20’s for this first km at Maleny. You think you are going fast but you are not really. The first kilometer seems fast but what the slope of the hill at the start gives you in gravitational assistance the grass takes away in its springy resistance. What the concrete path gives you in speed, the rutted path of crusher dust takes away from you in loss of rhythm. The whole course gives with one hand and takes with the other. Usually in the very same stride. So when you hit the first km marker and your watch beeps it’s time and you double glance at it and express your disappointment, trust me when I say that this is the point that the Maleny park run becomes its most enjoyable. Maleny is not a place to set a PB it is a place to run in nature and enjoy. A chance to take the pressure off yourself and remember why you love running and why you started running in the first place. A chance to think and a chance to flush your mind at the same time. I won’t lie and say it is an out of body experience. There are too many people around for you to experience any form of existentialistic enlightenment but it will stop you checking your watch every kilometer because after that first kilometer you know your time is not going to matter anymore.
Which is perfect because the next 4 kilometers are surprisingly difficult. Almost directly after the first kilometer marker tolls its disappointment to you, the path rises to give you the first of many ‘gentle’ undulations. All up the course only has 75m of elevation but the way it gives you this elevation is the equivalent of getting bacon splatter on your forearm or getting the same splatter directly on your face. Maleny gives you its elevation directly to your face and it adds tree roots and slippery mud, if it has been raining, or bush turkey mounds and echidna holes if it hasn’t. Once again this course is all about getting back to nature, just be careful that this very same nature doesn’t kill you. Kilometer 2 sees you transition from a horse paddock to a golf course buggy path and shoots you directly into a rainforest track. It really is like a tasting platter for the runner's mind. Every corner throws up a new sensation for your senses. Kilometer 3 takes you through the rainforest to the turnaround mark and back again. You want to look around and take in the beauty of the forest around you but you can’t as the ‘gentle’ hills have you dropping your head for relief, which is great because you need to have your head dipped so your eyes can see that the forest is doing its level best to injure you. As you make the turn around you will now have to contend with other runners who are doing their own form of survival running doing their level best to look at the ground and mathematically determine the best place to position their feet while forgetting to look ahead for other runners that are on the course. Kilometer 3 and then kilometer 4 will show you that everyone has a little dementia in them as you swear that you couldn’t remember running down these ‘gentle’ undulations that you are currently struggling to ascend. Did the bush turkeys construct them in the last 5 minutes? Or maybe I am running a different course on the way back? Running can rob you of your logic and reason sometimes and kilometer 3 and 4 certainly questions your sanity. Finally kilometer 5 sees you back on solid ground and the concrete path that you can ‘definitely’ remember has given you some confidence to finish strongly. You will most likely pick up the pace as you run alongside the horse paddock but this feeling of running euphoria will be replaced with dread as you turn the final corner and see the concrete hill rising to subdue your misplaced enthusiasm. This dread is short lived as the hill leads to the witches hats which pushes you into your final gallop across the paddock to the finish line.
As you cross the line you don’t really know what to think. Your senses have been blasted with the most amazingly picturesque course on the sunshine coast but as you glance down at your watch your ego has been smashed with a feeling of being soundly defeated. In the end, remind yourself that it is better to taste defeat at the hands of something beautiful than to experience victory in the face of something ugly.
Final thoughts
In a previous blog article about the Noosa park run course I said that I love to hate this course. It is a nasty course but it is wilfully nasty. It knows it is hard and doesn’t really care. I love the fact that the Noosa ParkRun course is comfortable with what it is. I still hate the course and I will run there again in a few weeks to remind myself of my dislike but in contrast Maleny is equally as hard as Noosa, in fact harder in many respects. But I can’t stop loving it. Like your childhood crush that took advantage of your devotion and mistreated you, you still went back for more because you only saw beauty when you looked at her. Maleny is Lady Godiva gorgeous. Majestically stunning, you can’t look away and you have to come back next week and bathe in the beauty of all this course has to offer yet again. You will no doubt fail to run as well as you think you will. The course won’t reward your fitness, it will make you look average but it will make you look average in the most beautiful parkrun setting in the sunshine coast.
Post mortem Coffee Scene
Wowsers!!! What can I say about the coffee scene at Maleny. It's epic to say the least.
After the run you have two choices. You can walk the poetry and sculpture path from the park run course to the boardwalk at the bottom of Maleny main street. Or you can hop in your car and drive and park in the underground car park at Woolworths. Here you can stand and look over the balcony and imagine the fight that the locals had with the developers in 2005 to save the small section of waterway for the platypus. Which I have never seen in the many years I have been coming here - another story there. I am assured that it is there. I just have never been in the right place at the right time. Let me know if you see him, her or they.
From the car park or the boardwalk on the other side, if you walked, I suggest that you walk up the main street and just pick a coffee shop. My pick is Maleny marketplace at the very top. It is a reclaimed barn (?) complete with huge gaps in the floor boards and equally big holes in the roof. The coffee and food tastes great probably because I want it to taste great. I wouldn’t go anywhere else. Well maybe the Maleny Lane which is equally quirky. Either place is perfect for just sitting back with your sore legs and mind full of experiences and sensations and let your eyes alight upon the ‘Maleny quirk’. You can’t not love this place.
Thanks for reading. Love to see you at the next Maleny park run.
All the best,
Sean
Park run stats
Events: 60
Finishers: 1,330
Finishes: 3,424
Average finishers per week: 57.1
Volunteers: 102
PBs: 600
Average finish time: 00:35:53
Average finishes per participant: 2.6
Groups: 127
Female record: Siobhan SEFTON – 19:47 – Event 15 (27 Mar 2021)
Male record: Mark WINDSOR – 17:33 – Event 55 (22 Jan 2022)
Age graded record: Brian WILDER - 83.41% 17:41 – Event 55 (22 Jan 2022)