Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 16th August 2025 I ran the Ruthin Memorial Playing Fields parkrun which was the 164th event held at the venue, my 249th parkrun and 167th different course I'd attended. In the early 90's, I spent.time.on holiday with my Grandparents in North Wales and have lots of childhood memories of the times we spent there. Since I've had my own children, I've always wanted to take them back with me so I could share a nostalgic look back at my childhood whilst given them their own memories to treasure. For whatever reason, we've not had an opportunity to do so, until now. With Gillingham playing Tranmere Rovers in August, I was able to peice together a short itinerary that allowed us to spend an extended weekend in the North West. Using an Airbnb style accommodation outside of Wrexham we planned to travel up on the Friday, watch Gillingham on Saturday and then spend Sunday and Monday exploring the best of what North Wales has to offer. It wasn't quite long lazy days ...

On the 9th August 2025 I ran the Fulham Palace parkrun which was the 510th event held at the venue, my 248th parkrun and 166th different course I'd attended. Last weekend, once I'd got home from my trip up north Stephanie called me over and asked me just what the hell I thought I was doing. Dazed and confused I asked her what she was talking about. She explained that she'd opened the parcel that I had ordered by mistake and/or curiosity. It was a long cardboard tube and I was completely in the dark. I hadn't ordered anything and so was completely mystified. I opened the lid and slid out the poster, unrolling it full of excitement as I realised what it was. It was a huge poster with a list of all the parkrun venues broken down into geographic regions. There were checkboxes next to each venue and a roll of 'tick' stickers so I could add stickers next to all the venues that I'd visited  I spent a good hour working through my tick list, oblivious to the origin ...

On the 2nd August 2025 I ran the Hyndburn parkrun which was the 323rd event held at the venue, my 247th parkrun and 165th different course I'd attended. 92 days after Gillingham took on Port Vale to bring the curtain down on the 2024/2025 football season, they took the field again to take on Accrington Stanley in the curtain raiser for the new campaign It meant that 92 days had also passed since my last football/parkrun double when I visited Isabel Trail parkrun along with Hayden and his mate Henry. Combining football away days with parkrun tourism has opened up areas of the country that I wouldn't ordinarily be able to visit direct from home. It also extends the football day significantly as we are no longer travelling up and back on the same day and so getting a chance to see the local area more widely than just simply the town and it's football stadium. I'd saved up some extra hours to give me and Hayden the ability to travel up earlier on the Friday afternoon. Rath...