Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 29th July 2023 I ran the Eastbourne parkrun which was the 542nd event held at the venue, my 141st parkrun and 69th different course I'd attended. A couple of weeks ago parkrun asked the developers of the 5k achievements app to change their functionality and remove all challenges relating to event numbers including the Fibonacci, Prime and Nelson number challenges.  As documented on my previous parkrun blogs these challenges were completely arbitrary and didn't mean anything to anyone if you completed the set. For me, it was always a bit of fun and added some form of structure to my parkrun planner whereas otherwise it all felt a little bit random. I was due to attend Wormwood Scrubs this weekend for their 555th event and another Nelson number but despite the fact that I'm not entirely behind parkruns decision to remove these challenges I am certainly going to respect it. The thought behind the removal is that these occasions have the possibility of overwhelming smal...

On the 22nd July 2023 I ran the Stockley Country parkrun which was the 28th event held at the venue, my 140th parkrun and 68th different course I'd attended. After a week off touring it was back in the road for another new parkrun venue and a low event number to help contribute to my growing collection of lower parkrun event numbers. Today was also the fourth birthday of my local parkrun, Cyclopark and so I was in a bit of a dilemma. I had arranged to meet my work colleague at Stockley Park and so didn't want to let her down by cancelling so I changed last week's tourist venue (Walthamstow) to a revisit and rerun at Cyclopark for an early birthday celebration instead. As it was, it went incredibly well as I set a new PB time of 27:11! It was also great running with Auntie Melinda and Richard my brother-in-law. Unfortunately, after all the change of plans and not wanting to let my colleague down I received a message from her this morning saying that she wasn't able to m...

On the 8th July 2023 I ran the Edenbrook Country parkrun which was the 56th event held at the venue, my 138th parkrun and 67th different course I'd attended. One of my work colleagues is a keen runner and has recently completed the Manchester and London marathons. Whilst he's not a regular parkrunner (due to family commitments) we made a date in the diary for me to join him at his local event - Edenbrook Country. Just over a year old, the event is held at Edenbrook Country park which is near Fleet in Hampshire. Edenbrook itself is a small village recently built as a housing development with local facilities included as part of the build including the country park and leisure centre. The start takes place at the leisure centre itself where there was ample parking in the overflow carpark. I arrived a little early and took myself for a walk around the first part of the course before heading back and meeting my colleague where we observed the pre-run briefing and listened to the c...

On the 1st July 2023 I ran the Aldenham parkrun which was the 347th event held at the venue, my 137th parkrun and 66th different course I'd attended. There are not many parkruns that start with the letter A, and having already visited Ashford, I had the choice of Ally Pally or Aldenham in which to complete the 'Namely' challenge - yet another arbitrary parkrun community challenge. This one a simple exercise of running a parkrun for every letter of your name. Luckily for me, my name is short and contains enough of the common letters to make the challenge a straight-forward one. Others have much more work to do, poor Christine Kowazki should she exist! Aldenham it was then, chosen to tie in with another Prime Number and the relative ease of access. Around the M25 and south down the A1 towards Elstree and Borehamwood. Elstree of course famous for its television studios and home of the EastEnders television set. In fact, driving to the event from coming of the main motorway ro...