Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 12th October 2024 I ran the Thornham Walks parkrun which was the 58th event held at the venue, my 58th 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 awa

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