My parkrun year

 Been a while since I last posted on here but as we reach the end of 2023 I thought I'd capture some details of my parkrun year.

In 2023 I have completed 50 park runs ( equalling my record on most done in a year) and bringing my total to 234 and steadily closing in on that 250 milestone.

• 28 have been at Winchester, my home parkrun which I have now run 152 times
• 4 have been at locations I have done before - Durham, Cheltenham (on the morning of my daughter's wedding), and two more visits to Ganger Farm
• 18 have been new locations - bringing my total tourism count to 70

Those new locations have been 

• Broadwater - a muddy affair near Guilford taking care to keep off the rugby pitches
• Monsal Trail - an out and back route along the old railway line
• Bartley Park - fairly local one I'd not done before and very wet 
• Great Yarmouth North Beach - stunning setting by the sea and memorable for being almost completely on sand, most of it soft
• Bolberry Down - out on the headland and includes a small bit of the South West Coastal path, calm on the day I did it but can imagine it gets very windy at times
• Wimple Estate - lovely route through the estate grounds
• Brooklands - flat and around the racing circuit
• Sligo - my second Irish parkrun
• Moors Valley - I do like a parkrun in the woods
• Lydiard - super setting, open countryside setting on good paths, west of Swindon
• Edenbrook Country - another lovely setting, narrow congested paths at the start but opens out.  Also includes ( well the time I did it it did..) a very considerate mower driver who paused his cutting of the grass while all the runners were going past.
• Chipping Norton School - school playing fields with some bonus woodland
• Guildford - route with a downhill finish always a bonus!
• Newbury - fascinating to run round the site of the old Greenham Common airbase and definitely recommend a visit to the control tower to learn some of the history of the site
• Blickling - set in the grounds of the National Trust property so the views are great, and super cafe.
• Horspath - around the edges of a variety of sports fields so not the most scenic 
• Roundshaw Downs - inauspicious approach though the industrial park but course has some super views ( mind you that is in part because of the hill).
• Marlborough Common - an all grass course, parking on the common and next to the golf club 

My map of parkrun completions (as shown in the Running Challenges extension https://running-challenges.co.uk/ ) is steadily turning greener and hopefully 2024 will see some more places coloured in as well as the completion of the 250th parkrun.

Celebrating my parkrun centenary

Yesterday I completed my 100th parkrun - a wet one in Winchester ....

.... so it seemed like a good excuse to reflect back on the 100 runs I've done over the last couple of years - the weighted average location of which incidentally is just west of Steeple Langford

Winchester is my home parkrun and 73 of those 100 runs have been around its course.  The other 27 have been at the following 23 locations - the comments reflect my memories and experiences of the day I was there.

• Gorleston - the one with the "cliffs" and my first piece of parkrun tourism
• Eastleigh - the muddy one where the briefing included details of the "water jump"
• Southampton ( x3) - the big one, inspiring to be with so many other people
• Basingstoke -  the one with the surprisingly steep "Tennis Court Hill" 
• Cardiff - the one near a university open day
• Durham - the one that finishes some distance from the start
• Queen Elizabeth - the scenic but very hilly one
• Shepton Mallet - the one with the youngest Run Director  
• Newborough Forest - the single loop forest one near the beach
• Colney Lane (x3) - the one near my parents
• Hartstown - the Irish one with balloons and cake ( their anniversary)
• Oxford - the one with a very congested first corner
• Ashford - the windy one   
• Cheltenham - the one with the roman centurion ( an outfit for people doing their 100th run - Winchester's tabard is certainly simpler !)   
• Lingwood - my sister's home parkrun and the youngest event I've run (was their 6th)
• Folkestone - well if you've got a lunchtime crossing on the shuttle you need to do something with your morning 
• Fontainebleau - the French one, my highest finish position (7th), and maybe not coincidentally, the smallest event I've done
• Kensington - my parkrun furthest from Winchester (5,830km)
• Coventry - the one that earned me my tourist badge ( 20th location completed)
• Andover - the one with the low fuel warning light!
• Torbay Velopark - the one partly on a bike track
• Sloughbottom - the one I was least sure how to pronounce
• Peterborough - the one with the scenic lakes

The next official milestone is at 250 runs so expect to hear from me again around this time in 2022 !

Completing my first Garmin Training Plan

In May ( as a reward to myself for successfully passing my DBA upgrade viva) I bought myself a Garmin watch with the idea that this would help me to track and inform my running activities.

One of my running goals for 2019 was to get my Winchester parkrun time below 25 minutes.
At the start of 2019 my PB stood at 27:40 and by the end of May it was down to 26:42 which, while an improvement, didn't fill me with confidence that at the current rate of progress I'd get below 25.

One of the features available to me through the Garmin app was to set up a Training Plan with a virtual coach.  On 12th June I duly embarked on a plan with a goal of achieving a 25 minute 5k run on 28th September.  "Amy" was my virtual coach - whilst she is a real person and I got to watch various videos of advice that she provides, clearly it is a system rather than her that was adapting the training plan as I went along, hence the "".

The first workout was a benchmark to see where I was ...

.... 5:37 min/km over 1.6km being the answer so someway off the needed pace.

Over the following weeks "Amy" provided me with a varied training plan, some longer steady runs, some shorter faster ones, speed repeats, tempo runs, even a hill climb session one week.

I stuck with the plan,  pretty much completing all of the assigned runs.   I could feel some improvement but nothing dramatic happened through June and July, no change to my Winchester parkrun PB.

As part of the details of my training plan in the app there was a rating that showed how confident "Amy" was that I'd reach my goal - I have to say that for a couple of months she was a good deal more confident than I was, with the display showing that I was likely to meet my goal even though I wasn't feeling a dramatic improvement.  As an aside it's interesting to reflect on the amount of  reassurance that I took from that vote of confidence in me - even be it from a system.  Also amused  that even knowing it was a system tracking me I kind of didn't want to let "Amy" down... I'm sure there's a good psychological reason why but it feels odd.

August was a bit of a breakthrough month when things seemed to click into place, and I guess the accumulated training over the previous weeks started to take effect.

My fastest ever 1km time dropped to 4:44 and then 4:38
My best ever 10km time dropped to an hour, then 59 mins, then 55:31
... and August 24th saw my Winchester PB drop to 25:55 a definite step in the right direction...

Whilst August was definitely the breakthrough month improvements continued in September when I managed to achieve my sub 25 min goal with a time of 24:22 on 7th September and clocked in at 24:28 (time from parkrun ) on the official last day of the training plan, proving achieving sub 25 time  wasn't a fluke ! .....

... I should note here that Amy's plan, unsurprisingly, tapered strongly over the last 2 weeks leading up to its conclusion on 28th Sept.   I however snuck in my first ever half marathon (and a hilly one at that) on Sunday 22nd, the weekend before .... please don't tell her !

Looking back over the past few months I'm actually rather surprised at just how much progress I've been able to make and the difference that following a structured training plan has made.

Will take a few weeks off from being told what to do and just do some runs that I fancy ( including next weekend my first marathon relay race and the Great South Run later in the month ).

Come November I'll definitely be having a think about what the next goal should be and looking out for a new plan to follow and see what results I can achieve.