Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 30th December 2023 I ran the Basildon parkrun which was the 443th event held at the venue, my 162nd parkrun and 87th different course I'd attended. Before we get onto my trip over to Essex, there's the small matter of Christmas Day and my return visit to the Great Lines where I ran for the 16th time and has now become customary on Christmas Day. I finished in 139th position out of a field of 374 participants in a time of 28:31. My last three visits have all finished within times just 8 seconds apart - Mr Consistency! Last year I kept to local events and paused the tourism game over Christmas, but with a long streak collected I wanted to keep up the momentum so chose to start working through my list of nearest events not done yet. Top of the pile was Basildon and so that's where I found myself on the last parkrun day of the year. Also, seeing as it was Christmas my friend Foordy is home for the festive period and he messaged me saying he'd come along again with m...

On the 23rd December 2023 I ran the Chalkwell Beach parkrun which was the 127th event held at the venue, my 160th parkrun and 86th different course I'd attended. Last year I completed my last parkrun before Christmas with a trip to the seaside and ran Margate parkrun. This year I decided to follow suit and complete another coastal event in the hope that they'd be big raging winds and rain to do battle with. Strange guy aren't I?! I chose to run at Chalkwell Beach which is just to the east of Southend pier. I'd been there plenty of times before, using part of the course for parking when on a day trip to Southend.  The start is approximately 3 kilometres further east along the coast and there is plenty of places to park up before the event. The course is a simple and straightforward one. An out and back towards the pier. It is evidently a popular event with a growing number of people arriving before the start full of Christmas cheer with many dressed up as Santa, elf...

On the 16th December 2023 I ran the Sunny Hill parkrun which was the 174th event held at the venue, my 159th parkrun and 85th different course I'd attended. Having suffered a little bit with my leg at last week's parkrun I decided to take friends and family advice and have a rest. Every evening I sat with an icepack on my thigh and missed my usual Wednesday wellbeing run in the hope that I'd not suffer or make worse whatever it was that was affecting me. I also considered my choice of venue, instead of Sunny Hill I thought I'd look to run somewhere a little flatter. I'm also borrowing Mum and Dads car whilst they are away travelling so I've got easy access to a reliable transport that I can use to travel to further away venues whilst the car is in my care. But after a couple of weeks of unplanned, last minute changes I decided to stick to the script and tackle whatever Sunny Hill had in store for me. Last week, I bemoaned the direction instructions provided by ...

On the 9th December 2023 I ran the Hockley Woods parkrun which was the 384th event held at the venue, my 158th parkrun and 84th different course I'd attended. These pages of tales of parkrun tourism are littered with revised plans, changes of venues, weather related disruptions and generally things not going as expected. This weekend was probably the greatest example of all of those things happening at once. I'd originally scheduled a visit to Sunny Hill parkrun, but Stephanie said that she thought the car was making funny noises so I changed to Highbury Fields as I could visit quite easily by train. We are borrowing my mum and dad's car for a period of time whilst they go on their travels starting this week, so our car issues will temporarily go away whilst we have two cars for the duration of that period. My niece Layla was off Saturday and wanted to come along with me, which was great - the more the merrier. However, on Thursday she asked me if she could give it a miss ...

On the 2nd December 2023 I ran the Valentines parkrun which was the 599th event held at the venue, my 157th parkrun and 83rd different course I'd attended. Last week I skipped the tourist trail again. Twice in three weeks I revisited a previously attended event and twice in three weeks I set a new course PB. Last weekend was a revisit to Mote Park parkrun for event number 74. I first visited for event number three, struggled in the heat and on the hills and set a time of 30:18. In much cooler temperatures and 18 months of psrkrunning behind me I set a new time of 27:59 which greatly exceeded my expectations. But whilst I certainly enjoyed returning to Mote park and enjoyed what is a lovely course. I also had the pleasure of sharing the experience with Reaso and Amelie who smashed her first full length parkrun. I couldn't help but miss the feeling of discovering a new course for the first time and the fulfilling sensation of adding another tick against the lost of events I'...