Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 25th December 2025 I ran the Maidstone River Park parkrun which was the 593rd event held at the venue, my 267th parkrun and the second time I'd visited the event. In recent years it has been a new tradition to attend parkrun on Christmas Day to get the festivities under way. This is normally attended at Great Lines, but as I'd racked up a list of 99 different parkrun events without repeat I had to find somewhere else to keep the run going and hit the centenary figure. We may have an abundance of parkrun venues close by to Gravesend, but not everyone runs a Christmas Day event and so the pickings were a few far and between. I had to also consider that it wasn't Great Lines that would upset my tourist streak, Dartford, Bexley and Leybourne Lakes would also see my streak reset. Fortunately Maidstone River Park were running, and as I hadn't visited the event since 2022 my tourist streak was well protected. It was also a venue that I hadn't blogged about before, ...

On the 20th December 2025 I ran the Lytham Hall parkrun which was the 295th event held at the venue, my 266th parkrun and 183rd different course I'd attended. Attempting to watch all of Gillingham Football clubs league games across a football season is not without challenge. League two is a tough league with lots of northern based sides which equates to expense both in time and finances. This would be hard enough as it is for majority of people without factoring the extra parameter of parkrun. Last season I visited Fleetwood Town for the very first time, combining it with a weekend break in Blackpool and visited both the ground and the local parkrun along Fleetwood Promenade. That was back in August and it was freezing cold and blowing a gale during the height of summer so goodness knows what December was going to be like! With that in mind my original intention was to travel part distance on Friday and stop over somewhere in the north west, Wigan or Preston where travelling dista...

On the 13th December 2025 I ran the Gunnersbury parkrun which was the 655th event held at the venue, my 265th parkrun and 182nd different course I'd attended. 2025 has been a year of methodically ticking off events around London in an attempt to complete and visit all parkruns across the region. The plan was almost complete, with just three more events to go. One more before Christmas, one in January and completion of all 63 in February of 2026. But parkrun world is an ever changing beast and new events appear on an almost weekly basis. Despite there being parkrun events across almost every London borough there's always room for one more and so that has proved. Three weeks ago a new event popped up on the events map in Greenwich, just outside of the O2 arena. 63 became 64 and that elusive regional status became one step removed. So what's the big deal?  Well, normal people who haven't quite taking it to the extremes that I have aren't affected. They would just chan...

On the 6th December 2025 I ran the Harwich parkrun which was the 483rd event held at the venue, my 264th parkrun and 181st different course I'd attended. Gillingham are never likely to win the FA Cup, but that doesn't stop us Gillingham fans from dreaming the dream every season. This year however, as many years previously the dream lasted momentarily as we were knocked out in round one away to Newport County. Gillingham were not the only supporters who had their hopes dashed, so did fans of Colchester United. And seeing as Colchester and Gillingham both had a free Saturday the officials of both clubs agreed to bring the match, which was scheduled in the midweek forward by a few days. And not only that, but to retain the television coverage by playing the game at the earlier time of twelve o'clock (instead of the traditional time of 3pm). This arrangement had plenty of benefits, with sound rationale. But for me it meant all sorts of changes and rearrangements needed to happ...

On the 29th November 2025 I ran the Shrewsbury parkrun which was the 496th event held at the venue, my 263rd parkrun and 180th different course I'd attended. As Stephanie was recovering from a long awaited Gall bladder removal, I was forced to miss a week's worth of parkrun as I carried out family tasks as she recovered from her operation. I am only able to do what I do on a Saturday morning because of her selflessness and so missing a week was no hardship. She is well and better now, after what is quite a routine surgery. Hopefully now she can get on with a better quality of life pain free and without worrying about potential attacks after eating the wrong kinds of foods. The next stop on the Gillingham FC schedule was an away fixture to Shrewsbury Town. We have all previously visited Shrewsbury, back in 2021. A weekend dominated by my mistake on booking.com.  Arriving at the hotel on Friday night there was no record of my booking. Eventually after some investigation they wor...

On the 15th November 2025 I ran the Bug Hunter Waters parkrun which was the 71st event held at the venue, my 262nd parkrun and 179th different course I'd attended. Big Hunter Waters is a relatively new event, and it was due to that fact that found me travelling up the M11 nice and early on a Saturday morning. I was looking to run an event that filled a gap in my Wilson Index. For those not paying attention the Wilson Index is the maximum number of contiguous event numbers that I have attended. That number currently stands at 59, but I've gaps throughout the 60s and 70s which I am trying to fill with a longer term goal of getting a Wilson Index of 100. This does mean, with events being fairly few and far between at lower ends of the event number spectrum that to achieve this goal that I may need to travel a little bit further than perhaps is sensible. I am fully aware that travelling distances on a Saturday morning, just for the pleasure of running 5k for half an hour of my tim...