The Sunshine Beach parkrun takes place in Otsu, Shiga, Japan. It is the nearest parkrun to Kyoto in Japan. From Kyoto station, it is about 40 minutes journey. The nearest train station to the parkrun is Zeze: this is about 1.2km away. 

Scroll down to the end for my video.

Getting to the parkrun 

I made this journey recently on Saturday 4 March for the 62nd event of Sunshine Beach parkrun. 

Since I was in Japan for the Osaka Marathon about a week back, I had dropped by Kyoto for a few days and I had decided to get another tourist parkrun in.

I am directionally challenged, so I prepared extra time to get there just in case I got lost. 

At one stage in trying to find my way from the train, I did ask a local Japanese guy for directions and though he couldn’t really speak English, he was super helpful, walking with me right to the park. It was very nice and courteous of him to do this.

I reached the park at about 7:20am but as they hadn’t set up everything yet, I was a bit confused at where the start was. 

Waiting for the start 

Fortunately I eventually bumped into a few other parkrun goers and we got to the start area when the run director was setting up at 7:45am. 

I guess they didn’t need so much time to prepare considering that Sunshine Beach is a small and cosy little parkrun.

 A cosy little event 

There were about 7 of us running altogether. About half were tourists. But the small numbers made it great to get to know everybody better. We were strangers at the beginning but we definitely became friends by the end of the event. 

The run director was basically doing all the volunteer roles, ranging from run director to first timers welcome, time keeper, barcode scanning, and photographer. It was a one-man show. But with 7 runners taking part, such multi-tasking was possible.

This event is quite a bit smaller than what I am used to back home in East Coast Park, Singapore, where we can hit 100 runners on a regular basis.

Start and run course

The parkrun started at 8am, with the run director taking a group picture before we flagged off. 8am is the start time for all parkruns in Japan so for all tourists, do take note. 

It was a cold parkrun, about 3 degrees at the start. I was freezing.

The route is two and a half laps. It is a very scenic and flat route along the beach. There are signs on where to u-turn but otherwise it is extremely straightforward and you won’t really get lost.  I enjoyed it thoroughly. The terrain is mostly pavement with some gravel. it is easy to run on and will not be a challenge.

A chillax run

I completed the run in an official time of 25 mins 35 sec. It is not my fastest parkrun, but the main thing is that I enjoyed myself. I was too busy taking pictures and videos along the way because the course was so scenic.

Conclusion 

After the parkrun, I caught up with the other tourists and we chit chatted for a bit before heading to the train station together. It sure seemed as if us tourists had all gotten to know each other already. This is what I truly love about parkrun. 

To conclude, I would say this was definitely a fun little parkrun and I would recommend it to any parkrunner who is in Kyoto, Japan on a Saturday morning.