Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

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...

On the 26th July 2025 I ran the Markshall Estate parkrun which was the 178th event held at the venue, my 246th parkrun and 164th different course I'd attended. As parkrun day fell on my birthday it was a chance to have a rare Saturday morning with my family in tow - although that didn't quite include Oliver who can't be convinced to get up early in the morning for anyone. So knowing that I'd have them joining me, and knowing that they'd not be willing to participate i had to encourage them by other means - breakfast. My normal planning schedule now had another criteria it needed to meet. Event number, unvisited and a stones throw away from aeam bacon sandwich. Top of the list that met all of those parameters was Markshall Estate, my 17th Essex venue and home to Mrs Salisbury's of Coggeshall Tearooms. Once again, another example of where the road to parkrun has taken me to places I would never have otherwise heard of, let alone visited. An hour from home, a rela...

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 28th October 2023 I ran the Rendlesham Forest parkrun which was the 89th event held at the venue, my 152nd parkrun and 80th different course I'd attended. The first rule as a parkrun tourist is to have a plan B. If you have a plan C it will likely come in handy, particularly during this time of year when the rainy season adds jeopardy to the best laid parkrun plans. I had pencilled in Rendlesham Forest for this weekend, but last week's cancellations meant that Thornham Woods wasn't able to run, and that their event 20 wasn't going to run for another week. Perfect for me, I was still looking to attend an event 20 for my Wilson index and rejigged me diary accordingly. As the kids were on half term and their weekend clubs cancelled it offered us as a family an opportunity. I suggested to Stephanie that we head out for the day on Friday, stay over night somewhere in the evening and attend Thornham Woods on the Saturday morning. After much faff and discussion that...

On the 9th September 2023 I ran the Alton Water parkrun which was the 97th event held at the venue, my 145th parkrun and 73rd different course I'd attended. Another week, another parkrun venue and another passenger alongside me on my parkrun journey. This week was the turn of my niece Layla who has started lodging with us in our spare room. Jokingly I suggested that as condition of her lodging with us, she needed to come parkrun with me each week. But her enthusiasm caught me by surprise. In fact, it was her that instigated the conversation this week with an "Uncle Adam, I might come parkrun with you this week". Having gone on to explain that she really didn't have to if she didn't want to, and that we were going to be getting up early and that we were going to be driving quite far. I also explained that it was going to be very hot and nobody was forcing here to do anything she didn't want to. She remained steadfast and was to my great surprise that when I wa...

On the 8th April 2023 I ran the South Norwood parkrun which was the 233rd event held at the venue, my 125th parkrun and 54th different course I'd attended. After the experience of Whinlatter Forest parkrun last week, this week parkrun jaunt was going to feel very much like a poor relation. However, every parkrun is a unique experience and every course has its own characteristics making them all memorable for completely different reasons. I'd chosen to run South Norwood parkrun for two reasons, one it's part of the LonDone venue list and secondly it was celebrating a Fibonacci event I'd not done yet. There was a decision to be made between this one and Alton Water, where I'd discussed the possibility of running there with Stephanie and the children in attendance before having a day out somewhere on the Suffolk coast, but Hayden had a football match and so we were led into doing what was easiest for Hayden's game. Stephanie and the two younger children came along...

Back in the December of 2011, my eldest son Oliver was a mascot for Gillingham FC as a treat for his fifth birthday. Last weekend, history repeated itself as my youngest son Hayden experienced the same thing as a celebration of his eighth trip around the sun. Reading back through the blog I wrote after Oliver walked out on the hallowed turf of the Priestfield Stadium I was struck by the contrast between the circumstances of both boys mascot appearances. Oliver was very much living my dream for me and he was a vehicle for living out the things I wanted to do as a child but never did myself.  Oliver enjoys playing football and has had an incredible football experience growing up playing at academy level when he was younger and could have achieved huge things if his heart was in it. But he hasn't quite been bitten by the same football bug that Hayden and I have. Hayden has developed a passion for the Gills since we've been season ticket holders, culminating this season in our Le...

On the 18th February 2023 I ran the Lordship Recreation Ground parkrun which was the 17th event held at the venue, my 118th parkrun and 48th different course I'd attended. Lordship Recreation Ground was one of two events that started on the same day in the autumn of last year and offered me an opportunity to fill in some of the early event numbers that are missing from my 'wilson index'. Being event number 17 it was also another chance to complete a prime number event, another gap that needed filling in my parkrun numbers game. Being half-term and Saturday morning clubs being on half-term break it was also an opportunity to invite the family to join me in my latest parkrun adventure. Hayden and Oliver still had football practice as normal, so Phoebe was the unlucky beneficiary this time around as she was the only one who had an amended routine - what better way to spend the morning than with a Daddy and Daughter day? The high speed train service into London has revolutioni...

On the 22nd October 2022 I ran the Bushy parkrun which was the 899th event held at the venue, my 100th parkrun and 34th different course I'd attended. Not to be confused with the town in Hertfordshire, Bushy park lies in South West London - a stones throw away from Hampton Court Palace. It is in fact a Royal Park, one of eight in London and is the second largest of them all. It's famous for its herds of red and fallow deer which roam freely across the park itself. In 2004 a man named Paul Sinton-Hewitt arranged a 5k running event at the park between running friends that was known as the Bushy Time Trial. The event was then replicated at Wimbledon Common three years later and further Time Trials soon followed. These events were then renamed to parkrun and a global initiative was born. As it was my 100th parkrun, what better way to celebrate my centenary than a pilgrimage to the place where it all started? Knowing that it was my 100th event and the next official parkrun mileston...

On the 27th August 2022 I ran the East Grinstead parkrun which was the 189th event held at the venue, my 92nd parkrun and 27th different course I'd attended. The last time I visited East Grinstead was to pay a visit to my Nan who was in hospital having her wedding finger surgically removed. She was on a ward of females having a variety of cosmetic procedures. My grandfather, fondly know as Gramps teased the patients that were in the ward with her. Pointing to a lady who had a rather excessive bossum he said 'she's here to have her boobs reduced'. Looking around and pointing to a woman on the other side of the ward he said 'and she's having hers made bigger'. As I'm sliding down my chair getting redder and redder he says 'they should go in together, swap and save a few bob'. More than twenty-five years have passed since that moment and I finally felt comfortable returning to East Grinstead without being recognised. I needed to collect an 'E...

On the 13th August 2022 I ran the Monsal Trail parkrun which was the 147th event held at the venue, my 90th parkrun and 25th different course I'd attended. When we were planning our week to the Peak District the parkrun enroute pretty much picked itself ( see my last post ), whereas the parkrun on the homeward bound journey could have been one of many. We knew that we needed to head to Liverpool from our accommodation near Buxton where we were heading via the long way home. Gillingham were playing Tranmere and so whilst we were in the reasonable vicinity it made sense at the time (event if it didn't at the full-time whistle!).  From our accommodation to the North West there are an abundance of parkruns to choose from. As there also are to the south with Trentham Gardens and the Isabel Trail coming highly recommend. The latter also having the added bonus of being one of the rare runs that start with 'i'. We could also have selected Ashbourne which is a relatively new...

On the 6th August 2022 I ran the Jersey Farm parkrun which was the 119th event held at the venue, my 89th parkrun and 24th different course I'd attended. Completing parkrun challenges is not as easy as you might think. For example, it's actually impossible to complete a parkrun beginning with X, to get a Y you have to go to York, or hope that Yeovil bring back their elapsed event. To complete a parkrun beginning with Z you have to travel to Holland or Poland. The letter J is not much better with events few and far between, so when the opportunity to arose to tick of Jersey Farm from my parkrun list I was going to take it! With summer holidays fast approaching and nothing in the diary Stephanie and I asked the kids what they all wanted to do during the six weeks off. Each one of them said the same thing, "Alton Towers", so we formed a plan! As with most plans these days, they only really work when a parkrun is included. Or in this case, two! In order to make the most ...

On the 26th March 2022 I ran the Bear Creek Greenbelt parkun which was the 63rd event held at the venue, my 71st parkrun and 9th different course I'd attended. It was also the first event that I had ran overseas. When looking back at the other venues that I had ran at the time of writing this, there was only really one place to start when looking to write a retrospective.  In 2020, I had a milestone birthday and as a gift Mum and Dad offered to take Stephanie and I to Texas so that we could watch the US Grand Prix in Austin. The original plan was to base ourselves out of San Antonio and drive up to the circuit on qualifying and race day. However, the global pandemic put pay to that idea and despite attempts to reschedule we wasn't able to go in 2021 either. Due to the booking conditions of our accommodation in San Antonio we had to rebook by April 2022, so we did. Instead of a week of sporting tourism, we had a Texas roadtrip to look forward to instead. As the itinerary change...

On Saturday 4th June 2022 I ran the Queen Elizabeth parkrun , which was the 407th time that this particular event had been held. It was also my 81st parkrun at my 16th different event and was by far my most enjoyable. I enjoyed the event so much that I've found my way back to my blog to write all about it! Since I last wrote a blog post, a whole load of everything has changed. The global pandemic caused a seismic shift in how we live and go about our lives that recounting everything would take more than a blog or two. I should probably take a few minutes and re-read what I wrote back then and to see how much of it resonates. But I digress, this post is about my parkrun journey and a new obsession which I want to document for safe-keeping. My first parkrun was back in July 2014 when I ran the Great Lines event. Over the subsequent years I had run occasionally at the Great Lines and even did some touristing at Hastings and Bexley , but it wasn't until the Cyclopark event came...