Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

On the 24th January 2025 I ran the Fountains Abbey parkrun which was the 526th event held at the venue, my 273rd parkrun and 188th different course I'd attended. There are parkruns and then there are parkruns. The events that are 'must visit' or 'iconic', at least in the eyes of the parkrun tourist community. It's an elite list of parkrun venues which stand out as scenic, brutal or both. Whinlatter Forest for its elevation and scenery, Great Yarmouth North Beach for running on sand and Woolacombe Dunes for its location and tough as nails course. Fountains Abbey is often spoken of and features weekly on Facebook groups as one of the most beautiful and scenic parkrun courses in the UK. Bring based near Ripon, North Yorkshire it's an event that's not exactly on the doorstep. Fortunately as a football fan and supporting Gillingham around the country there are opportunities for me to combine two things, parkrun with love of the beautiful game. Once the footb...

On the 17th January 2025 I ran the Crane Park parkrun which was the 644th event held at the venue, my 272nd parkrun and 187th different course I'd attended. I had it all planned out. Crane Park, followed by Ingrebourne hill. And I would have successfully visited all 65 parkruns in Greater London. But then up popped Greenwich Peninsula parkrun and made it 66 events. Which might just be another one to add to the list, but my self-imposed rule of not running the same event number more than twice means that I'm not going to run the new parkrun in Greenwich for at least a year. LonDone status is going to have to wait. There is also the risk here that the day before I eventually run Greenwich Peninsula parkrun another new venue appears and the whole wait starts over again. Oh well! Me and my silly rules. Anyhow, we can't control the future, so let's make the most of today. And today was the turn of Crane parkrun, where once again I was joined by Foordy who had his first tast...

On the 10th January 2025 I ran the Castle Park parkrun which was the 356th event held at the venue, my 271st parkrun and 186th different course I'd attended. It was a case of third time lucky on Saturday morning as I made it to Bishops Stortford for Castle Park parkrun. I had attempted to run the event on two previous occasions but hadn't made it. The first, last summer due to a night in A&E as Steph had a Gall Bladder episode and more recently on New Year's Eve when my friends convinced me to run somewhere more local. I was joined again by Foordy who continued his parkrun renaissance on another cold and chilly morning. We followed the instructions given to us by the event website and found ourselves at a Waitrose carpark which had strict parking signs up that prohibited stays longer than two hours and stated a minimum spend must be made in the adjoining store. Debating whether to move and find elsewhere to park we worked out that we would be able to be well within tim...

On the 3rd January 2025 I ran the Sizewell parkrun which was the 318th event held at the venue, my 270th parkrun and 185th different course I'd attended. After revisiting Dartford Heath on New Year's Day I was keen to get back on the tourist trail and continue with my Saturday morning adventures. Foordy had joined me for two of the last three parkrun days and being back from injury I think he's secretly got the bug back again. So when he called me and said he wanted to buy a pair of shoes and needed to pick them up in Bury St Edmunds I knew there was an opportunity to be had. I might just add a caveat here, and state that this is typical random Foordy behaviour and my eyebrows would have been raised had I had this conversation with someone else. Bury St Edmunds does of course have its own parkrun event, and the sensible thing would have been to visit the parkrun in town and pop to whichever shop we needed to afterwards to pick up the aforementioned shoes. But that was too ...

On the 1st January 2026 I ran the Dartford Heath parkrun which was the 324th event held at the venue, my 269th parkrun and the second time I'd visited the event. As per Christmas Day, it's become a recent tradition to start the new year with a parkrun. I had planned a fairly low-key New Year's Eve and wanted to start 2026 by getting up early and driving over to Bishop's Stortford to tick off Castle Park parkrun. But like the previous time I'd planned to visit the event, my best laid plans were scrapped into the bin on the night before. Talking with Foordy, Aimee and Reaso on New Year's Eve whilst enjoying a few light beverages they managed to strike a deal. They'd join me at parkrun in the morning providing they didn't need to get up quite so late. Fair deal all things considered, so a quick review of the 5k app allowed a new plan to be put into place. I last ran Dartford Heath in 2022 right at the beginning of my parkrun tourism journey. It was when I ...

On the 27th December 2025 I ran the Great Dunmow parkrun which was the 303rd event held at the venue, my 268th parkrun and 184th different course I'd attended. 2025 has been another year of remarkable parkrun activities. I missed three weekends, one where I was injured and twice through supporting Stephanie through her Gall Stone problems. Its not lost on me that although I supported her for two weekends out of 52, without her support in letting me do my thing I literally wouldn't be able to do what I do. Her selflessness in taking the children to their clubs on a Saturday morning means she too has an early start to her weekend and in my mine, not nearly as an enjoyable one. But she does meet her sister for breakfast at a local cafe for a weekly catch-up so it's not all parental duty. Of all those weeks attendance in 2025, I never repeated a week at the same venue, but I did manage to revisit three events, including another visit to my 'home' parkrun at Cyclopark, ...

On the 25th December 2025 I ran the Maidstone River Park parkrun which was the 593rd event held at the venue, my 267th parkrun and the second time I'd visited the event. In recent years it has been a new tradition to attend parkrun on Christmas Day to get the festivities under way. This is normally attended at Great Lines, but as I'd racked up a list of 99 different parkrun events without repeat I had to find somewhere else to keep the run going and hit the centenary figure. We may have an abundance of parkrun venues close by to Gravesend, but not everyone runs a Christmas Day event and so the pickings were a few far and between. I had to also consider that it wasn't Great Lines that would upset my tourist streak, Dartford, Bexley and Leybourne Lakes would also see my streak reset. Fortunately Maidstone River Park were running, and as I hadn't visited the event since 2022 my tourist streak was well protected. It was also a venue that I hadn't blogged about before, ...

On the 20th December 2025 I ran the Lytham Hall parkrun which was the 295th event held at the venue, my 266th parkrun and 183rd different course I'd attended. Attempting to watch all of Gillingham Football clubs league games across a football season is not without challenge. League two is a tough league with lots of northern based sides which equates to expense both in time and finances. This would be hard enough as it is for majority of people without factoring the extra parameter of parkrun. Last season I visited Fleetwood Town for the very first time, combining it with a weekend break in Blackpool and visited both the ground and the local parkrun along Fleetwood Promenade. That was back in August and it was freezing cold and blowing a gale during the height of summer so goodness knows what December was going to be like! With that in mind my original intention was to travel part distance on Friday and stop over somewhere in the north west, Wigan or Preston where travelling dista...