Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 14th December 2024 I ran the Hampstead Heath parkrun which was the 622nd event held at the venue, my 215th parkrun and 135th different course I'd attended. After two weeks of weather related conversation, it was nice to have something else to talk about for a change. Instead of wind and rain the question was; what is the toughest parkrun in London? There are candidates: Sunny Hill, Hilly Fields and Lloyd which all crop up frequently I'm these debates and I can make a case for all of those one way or another as I've unfortunately ran them all. However, there is definitely now a new contender, one that I believe takes the crown and possibly by some distance. Hello Hampstead Heath! Our morning started off potentially ruining our parkrun day before it had even started. I awple early in the morning before my alarm was due to go off and a tossed and turned waiting for it to finally ring. Eventually I noted the crack in the bedroom curtains was brighter than it should have...

On the 7th December 2024 I ran the Highbury Fields parkrun which was the 616th event held at the venue, my 214th parkrun and 134th different course I'd attended. If last week was a cautionary winter tale warning about mud, this week is chapter two - entitled 'wind and rain'.  Thanks to Storm Darragh parkrun events across the UK were being cancelled on the basis of safety. The parkrun map on the 5K app was a sea of red pins denoting that the event was no longer going ahead. Initially across the east, but spreading westward and I was frantically refreshing the screen of news from Highbury Fields, my chosen event this weekend. The event Facebook page, although still available hadn't been updated for years and so I had no real context of whether the event was likely to cancel or not so waking up on the Saturday morning it was a case of getting to the event to find out one way or another. Highbury Fields was one of those events I had pencilled in the get to by trains such i...

On the 30th November 2024 I ran the Malling Rec parkrun which was the 22nd event held at the venue, my 213th parkrun and 133rd different course I'd attended. This time of year is the time to choose a parkrun course carefully. Selecting a venue that is ran on tarmac paths rather than grass saves the heartache of having to clean trainers and risk life and limb slipping over on mud infested trails and grassland. Unfortunately when you are a bit OCD as I am and are selecting venues based on their event numbers rather than practicality, you run the risk of heading towards a sticky and muddy ending. Malling Rec popped up earlier in the year as a new parkrun venue and despite the name is nowhere nearly Malling as we know it. The town near Maidstone doesn't have a parkrun, albeit it did have an event nearby called Malling which as a result of all this confusion renamed itself as Leybourne Lakes which now far more geographically accurate. The new Malling Rec event is based in Lewes in ...

On the 25th June 2016 I ran the Bexley parkrun which was the 229th event held at the venue, my 10th parkrun and 2nd different course I'd attended. On the 23rd November 2024 I returned back for my second visit at the 596th event held at the venue. I'm very fortunate to be able to parkrun every weekend and even more so to visit a different parkrun each week. It's only through Stephanie and her commitment to running the children around on Saturday mornings at their various clubs that allows me the freedom to continue doing what I do. Inevitably though, the two sides collide and neither of us are able to be in two places at the same time and so compromises need to be made. Phoebe had a singing assessment day in Maidstone early on Saturday morning and Hayden had his football training which finishes anywhere between 10:15 and 10:30. Stephanie was able to drop him off but I needed to pick him up so I needed to choose a parkrun that allowed me sufficient time to get back for the e...

On the 16th November 2024 I ran the Wantstead Flats parkrun which was the 648th event held at the venue, my 211th parkrun and 132nd different course I'd attended. Last week after Roding Valley parkrun I had a discussion with a member of the parkrun tourism group on Facebook who told me of the eight additional events that made up the full Total PIED challenge, which is all of the Essex venues plus those that are now part of Greater London, or the historical part of Essex. Of those eight, I had one left to visit - Wanstead Flats, and it just so happened that I'd pencilled this in the diary for this week coming! I was joined once again by Mark who was available, but had to be home promptly afterwards for a pre-Christmas day out with the family. I assured him that everything would be fine and I'd have him home all in good time. Following instructions from the event website we parked up at the carpark, which is around 1km away from the start. Wanstead Flats and surrounding grou...

On the 9th November 2024 I ran the Roding Valley parkrun which was the 337th event held at the venue, my 210th parkrun and 131st different course I'd attended. Just like Kent, Essex has a series of parkruns that are no longer part of Essex and are now a part of Greater London. So depending on who you speak to there are either 32 parkrun events to complete the set, or 24.  For me, I'm treating Kent and Essex the same. In that I'm aiming to complete all the events in the county and any that are now under Greater London, tick them off under that jurisdiction instead. So the goal on Saturday was to reach the halfway point of the Essex parkrun odyssey and tick off the twelfth venue in the county.  My friend Mark accompanied me along the A13 and M11 where we parked up as instructed on the Roding Valley parkrun website. Two minutes later a car pulled up alongside me and cousin Nick appeared with his wife Jenny. Talk about punctual! After last week's meet up at Wimpole Estate ...

On the 2nd November 2024 I ran the Wimpole Estate parkrun which was the 507th event held at the venue, my 209th parkrun and 130th different course I'd attended. My cousin Nick messaged me a year ago saying that he'd been inspired by my parkrun exploits. He'd seen my Facebook posts and was just about to undertake his first parkrun at Soham Village College. We made plans to meet up and I was going to enjoy his home course with him, but his father-in-law passed away suddenly and he had to make an emergency dash to the Philippines in order to attend the funeral. We never quite made those plans again as life once again got in the way, until a couple of weeks ago Nick got back in touch and brought the conversation back to the table. Just as I had gotten with Cyclopark, Nick has developed a home run fatigue and wanted to try somewhere new. We both suggested Wimpole Estate as it was an event that I really wanted to do and he'd heard good things being relatively close to his ho...

On the 26th October 2024 I ran the South Woodham Ferrers parkrun which was the 276th event held at the venue, my 208th parkrun and 129th different course I'd attended. A little while ago I redrew my parkrun planner with a whole new strategy. Rather than a focus on London events I decided to prioritise those events closest to me geographically. It means that for every week that passes I have to travel that little bit extra further to the next event. There are anomalies to this plan, the fact that the actual nearest to me that I've not done yet is Beckenham Place which I'm putting off until the course returns back to its original point-to-point configuration and others where I am aiming to combine football with parkrun, or next week when I meet my cousin Nick. The first week of this revised schedule threw up South Woodham Ferrers, which is just over the water in Essex in a place that I've never heard of until this thing called parkrun came into my life. It worked out bea...

On the 19th October 2024 I ran the California Country parkrun which was the 221st event held at the venue, my 207th parkrun and 128th different course I'd attended. There are parkruns I want to visit as they are iconic, like Great Yarmouth North Beach which is ran on sand, or Fountains Abbey for it's scenic beauty. There are other parkruns I want to visit purely because I like the name. Father Collins, Peter Pan and Pocket all fall under this category.  So when I was putting my plan together for this weekend and had no idea where to go, I chose a parkrun purely on that fact that it sounded cool and I'd always wanted to go to California. Even though the country park in Wokingham was nowhere near the west coast of America, and as far as I can tell, nowhere nearly related. As we start to get deeper into the autumn and November appears ominously closer, us tourists need to start keeping our wits about us. Weather can and quite often does cause havoc and can sometimes lead to s...

On the 12th October 2024 I ran the Thornham Walks parkrun which was the 58th event held at the venue, my 206th parkrun and 127th different course I'd attended. There are a grand total of 277 parkrun events across the South East, Greater London and Eastern regions of which majority are within a two hour commute of home. When people ask me how long I plan to tourist for or when do I think I'll stop I use this collection of events as my answer. Which means inevitably that I'm going to have some early starts and/or overnight stays in order to get to some of the more distant events, particularly those in East Anglia and the northern coastline of Norfolk. This weekend I was heading for Thornham Walks parkrun in order to tick off event 58, one of my remaining few event numbers that I hadn't ran yet to try and get my Wilson Index up into the 60's. Thornham Magna the town in which the event is held is the other side of Ipswich and so from home an hour and 44 minute drive aw...

On the 5th October 2024 I ran the Volksgarten parkrun which was the 201st event held at the venue, my 205th parkrun and 126th different course I'd attended. After our day touristing in Cologne we head south of the city for a day at Phantasialand, one of the very many German theme parks in the country and arguably one of the very best of it's kind anywhere in the world. We had a great day and enjoyed as many of the rides and attractions as we could. Truth be told, a two day visit would have been better, but when you have only a single day there you have to make the most of it which we did. Highlights included Taron and FLY, the latter being a launched flying coaster where you are laying down and literally in the flying position. Both coasters were ridiculously long and seemed to go on forever which was a refreshing change from similar attractions at Alton Towers and Thorpe Park where you come off things feeling rather short changed. Stephanie continued to feel the effects of ol...

On the 3rd October 2024 I ran the Rheinpark parkrun which was the 158th event held at the venue, my 204th parkrun and 125th different course I'd attended. Every parkrun country is allowed to host a one off parkrun on a non-saturday as a 'special event day'. The UK uses theirs on Christmas Day, the US on thanksgiving and Germany on Unity Day which is their national holiday which takes place every year on October 3rd. Earlier this year we planned a short family break. The plan was to spend the weekend in Holland and to run two parkruns, including their special event either side of some touristing and visits to some European theme parks. However, those plans were ruined when we realised two days before we were due to leave that Oliver and Phoebe's passports lacked sufficient validity for them to travel. We did as any responsible parents would do and went without them. As part of the compensation package agreed with Oliver and Phoebe I suggested that we would book another ...

On the 21st September 2024 I ran the Colwick parkrun which was the 611th event held at the venue, my 202nd parkrun and 124th different course I'd attended. Following the Gills around the country has enabled me to combine football fandom with parkrun touristing and expand the range of possible places to visit on a Saturday morning massively. But travelling with Hayden in tow means that I have to make a few compromises when it comes to picking an appropriate venue. As Gillingham were playing Notts County again we had an opportunity to tick off another one of the many Nottingham events. We had already done Wollaton Hall which is a jewel in the Nottingham crown and so I didn't necessarily have a preference which of the others to visit. Having a look at the event numbers of all the courses available I had already run most of them and so the only one that met all of the criteria was Forest Rec. We also had the option of Colwick which is the closest event to Notts County and would ha...

On the 14th September 2024 I ran the Richmond Park parkrun which was the 827th event held at the venue, my 201st parkrun and 123rd different course I'd attended. For some reason I wasn't expecting much of Richmond parkrun, and I'm not quite sure why. I was expecting to just take my usual drive in the morning, run around the park and come back home again ticking off my 43rd Greater London parkrun, and leaving with working out when and where I'd be doing my final 20 to complete the LonDone set. But it ended up being so much more than that. Having ran at nearby Kingston and Bushy I was in familiar territory on my drive around the M25 and following the route to Chessington World of Adventures. Carrying on past the white knuckle and family adventures deeper into South West London via the A3 until Google took me off route and into areas unknown. After following obligingly for a few miles through housing estates, main roads, left turns and navigating roundabouts I was told to...

On the 7th September 2024 I ran the Epworth Equestrian parkrun which was the 54th event held at the venue, my 200th parkrun and 122nd different course I'd attended. Sometimes the stars just align and impossible things become possible. In my schedule I'd planned to visit Woolford Wood parkrun for event number 54, which is another gap at the the lower end of my missing event number spectrum. But a post on Facebook changed all of that. The organisers of Epworth Equestrian parkrun announced on Facebook that the owners of the Equestrian centre in which the parkrun is hosted had revoked ongoing access to the course, and so it was sadly to close part way through October. As part of the list of arbitrary parkrun challenges on the 5k parkrunner app is a challenge called 'we where there' and is achieved by running at an event that is no longer running or is closed access to the public (parkrun does run in some prisons and participants from outside can apply to attend). I wondere...

On the 31st August 2024 I ran the Wakehurst parkrun which was the 20th event held at the venue, my 199th parkrun and 121st different course I'd attended. I'd never heard of Wakehurst Place until earlier this year when a new parkrun popped up on social media. Since then, every week it pops up as the latest new venue that parkrun tourists have visited and have shared their experience of the event on Facebook. But I had to wait patiently to record my own visit and then when I finally came to enjoy it for myself I barely paid it any notice. Whenever a new event pops up it gives me an opportunity to fill one of my gaps in my Wilson Index. Which explained before on these pages is the visit of a parkrun event in continued numeric order. I'd previously visited parkruns that were numbered 1 to 19. I've also visited a number 21 and numbers 23 through to 32. So gaps where 20, 22 and 33 should be. Eventually I'd like have a Wilson Index of 100, but I'm still some way off t...

On the 25th August 2024 I ran the Fleetwood Promenade parkrun which was the 244th event held at the venue, my 198th parkrun and 120th different course I'd attended. Gillingham's fixture list hasn't been kind. Hot off the heels of two long away trips to Swansea and Morecambe the last thing the team and supporters needed was a third successive marathon on the road. But that's what they got with another long slog to Lancashire with Fleetwood Town being the latest hosts in a northern dominated league two campaign. It could have been worse, it could have been another midweek trip or a Saturday in December two days before Christmas. But being August and during the school holidays over the last of the years bank holiday weekend, supporters had the enviable position to make a weekend of it. Which is exactly what we did - a weekend in Blackpool. Travelling up on Thursday we had a more comfortable time of it than the previous Friday where it took near on seven hours to get to Mo...

On the 17th August 2024 I ran the Morecambe Prom parkrun which was the 204th event held at the venue, my 197th parkrun and 119th different course I'd attended. Gillingham's failure to get promoted last season condemned them to yet another season of league two football. A division this year which is made up predominantly of northern based teams and therefore a lot of travelling for anyone wanting to follow them on the road for away games. When the fixture list came out and I realised that Morecambe and Fleetwood followed each other on consecutive week's in August I eyed an opportunity. We could spend a week up north in a caravan or cheap accommodation and take in both games as bookends to a trip. However, the league cup first round tie was drawn a day later and we were drawn away to Swansea. So in the space of ten days Gillingham were on the road to South Wales and deepest Lancashire ànd of the three grounds I'd only been to one of them. Initially then plans were made t...