Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 27th August 2022 I ran the East Grinstead parkrun which was the 189th event held at the venue, my 92nd parkrun and 27th different course I'd attended. The last time I visited East Grinstead was to pay a visit to my Nan who was in hospital having her wedding finger surgically removed. She was on a ward of females having a variety of cosmetic procedures. My grandfather, fondly know as Gramps teased the patients that were in the ward with her. Pointing to a lady who had a rather excessive bossum he said 'she's here to have her boobs reduced'. Looking around and pointing to a woman on the other side of the ward he said 'and she's having hers made bigger'. As I'm sliding down my chair getting redder and redder he says 'they should go in together, swap and save a few bob'. More than twenty-five years have passed since that moment and I finally felt comfortable returning to East Grinstead without being recognised. I needed to collect an 'E...

On the 20th August 2022 I ran the Squerreys Winery parkrun which was the 79th event held at the venue, my 91st parkrun and 26th different course I'd attended. We are fortunate in Kent to not only have a number of different parkrun events, but events that consist of contrast and points of difference. Whether that's the hills and elevation of Lullingstone or the flat out and back routes of The Leas and Deal & Walmer you can find a wide variation of everything in-between. Of the 24 events in Kent I had done until Saturday exactly half of them and hope to visit the other half by the end of the year starting with Saturday's event at Squerreys Winery . I had been keen to attend this event ever since I'd first heard about it. Not necessarily for the run, but the fact that on the same site was a local brewery with the chance to pick up some craft beer alongside a shiny new PB. In the week leading up to the event, my friend Bartek had finally succumbed to my relentless e...

On the 13th August 2022 I ran the Monsal Trail parkrun which was the 147th event held at the venue, my 90th parkrun and 25th different course I'd attended. When we were planning our week to the Peak District the parkrun enroute pretty much picked itself ( see my last post ), whereas the parkrun on the homeward bound journey could have been one of many. We knew that we needed to head to Liverpool from our accommodation near Buxton where we were heading via the long way home. Gillingham were playing Tranmere and so whilst we were in the reasonable vicinity it made sense at the time (event if it didn't at the full-time whistle!).  From our accommodation to the North West there are an abundance of parkruns to choose from. As there also are to the south with Trentham Gardens and the Isabel Trail coming highly recommend. The latter also having the added bonus of being one of the rare runs that start with 'i'. We could also have selected Ashbourne which is a relatively new...

On the 6th August 2022 I ran the Jersey Farm parkrun which was the 119th event held at the venue, my 89th parkrun and 24th different course I'd attended. Completing parkrun challenges is not as easy as you might think. For example, it's actually impossible to complete a parkrun beginning with X, to get a Y you have to go to York, or hope that Yeovil bring back their elapsed event. To complete a parkrun beginning with Z you have to travel to Holland or Poland. The letter J is not much better with events few and far between, so when the opportunity to arose to tick of Jersey Farm from my parkrun list I was going to take it! With summer holidays fast approaching and nothing in the diary Stephanie and I asked the kids what they all wanted to do during the six weeks off. Each one of them said the same thing, "Alton Towers", so we formed a plan! As with most plans these days, they only really work when a parkrun is included. Or in this case, two! In order to make the most ...

On the 30th July 2022 I ran the Thurrock parkrun which was the 285th event held at the venue, my 88th parkrun and 23rd different course I'd attended. My parkrun planner is not through random choice, it is carefully considered. Crafted around ticking events off the alphabet list, ticking events off in Kent and ticking off those inside the M25. I also consider the event numbers as well to ensure that I am ticking off numeric challenges such as prime numbers, Fibonacci sequence or if I'm feeling extra technical ticking off numbers from the Wilson Index (I don't actually know why the Wilson Index is called the Wilson Index or who it is named after. It is however, the maximum contiguous number of events that I've attended, in my case 3. If I run an event that is number 4, my Wilson Index will go up to 16 on account that I've run event numbers 5 through to 16 and number 4 is the gap in my sequence. Glad we cleared that one up...) The other factor that I consider and I bel...