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.

Walking the Solent Way

Today we completed walking The Solent Way which runs from Milford-on-Sea to Emsworth and is billed as being 60 miles.

It is a terrific walk with some stunning scenery, definitely one I'd recommend.

We started last year and were close to finishing when various lockdowns and travel restrictions meant we had to shelve plans to do the last section until now.

We split it into 5 sections - links are to Strava segments showing the route, plus additional walking needed to get to/from the various bus and train connections we used and occasional extra bits and pieces along the way.    As well as following on the route details on the OS map we used this very helpful set of notes which were slightly out of date in a couple of places but a super guide to the walk.

Section 1 - on 13th Sept 2020 we headed to Milford-on-sea to start the Solent Way. Walked to Lymington.  The section on shingle out and back to Hurst Castle is tiring but well worth it. Stunning coastal scenery and views over to the Isle of Wight.  20km

Section 2 - back the next week, 20th Sept, to walk from Lymington to Southampton with lunch stop in Bucklers Hard.  Less coastal than the first section including as it does a section through the New Forest. Section from Beaulieu to Hythe along the road was one of the less inspiring parts of the Solent Way.   Included our first ferry of the walk from Hythe up to Southampton.   Took a brisk walk along the final section to make the last ferry of the day and includes taking a small train a surprisingly long way out along what feels like, but I'm sure isn't, a very rickety pier. 28km

Section 3a & 3b- bit of a gap due to me doing the Virtual London Marathon on 4th October but 10th October saw us back on the train to Southampton and short walk down to coast to pick up the route.  Crossed the Itchen Bridge and then followed the coast to Hamble-le-Rice with a stop for lunch at the Royal Victoria Country Park.  Took the small ferry across to Warsash and continued walk down to Lee-on-the-Solent.  Bus times didn't mesh with our arrival so taxi back to Fareham Station.  Total of 26km.

Section 4  18th October, back the next week to pick up where we left off and continue round to Hilsea.  The Gosport ferry was the third of this walk, and the largest.  Completely still day with no wind at all making it eerily quiet at times along by the coast.    Included walking along part of the course for the Great South Run on the day that it had originally been scheduled to run... saw a few runners out in various GSR T-Shirts. Some brisk walking again, and a kind guard meant we just caught the train we were aiming for.  24km

Final section not quite a year since we started, 1st August saw us back on the train to Hilsea.  Picked up where we left off - diversion still in place for a short section where the sea wall is being improved.  Walked to end of the Way in Emsworth.  First section continued along the edge of Langstone Harbour and includes a loop around the Farlington Marshes where we saw a range of birds.  Langstone certainly one of the gems along the route.  Signage for the Solent Way has been good throughout but slightly disappointing that there is nothing to mark the end ... mind you there was a nice teashop so not all bad....  Our shortest day at 18km, bringing the grand total to 117km or 73 miles.

Various photos from the walk are included in the Strava entries and are also gathered together in this Flickr album.

What next ?   Having had the Isle of Wight for company in the distance for so much of the walk it would be good some day to walk round there and look back across at this walk.  I think however that the Pilgrim's Way from Winchester to Canterbury may come first.

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.

What have I been reading in 2018

As the year draws to a close I thought I'd post a summary of the books I've read in 2018.   It's quite a list ranging from short and amusing to the much slower going detailed read( yes we're looking at you Mcauley, Duberley & Johnson).  A mix of DBA study related texts, general business, faith, couple of novels, and a few on my new found interest in running.

Here they are together ( minus a few that were borrowed from libraries during the year)

.. and here's the full list

1. Why Should Anyone Work Here by Bob Coffee and Gareth Jones - discussion of 6 key attributes that organisations should have if they want to attract and retain the best people.
2. Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed - a call to rethink our attitude towards failure and see it as a path to learning. Richly illustrated with examples from research and practice.
3. Ethics by Peter Cave - Great introduction to the topic and explanations of different perspectives
4. The Social Construction of Reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann - not an easy read….book argues that “reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyze the processes in which this occurs."
5. The Logic of Life by Tim Harford - applying his economist's eye and searching for the underlying rational behaviour in life
6. Energise You by Oliver Gray - short guide to achieving health, energy and happiness.
7. Too Big to Fail: Inside the battle to save Wall Street by Andrew Ross Sorkin - amazingly detailed story of the twists and turns of the 2008 financial crisis. I was struck by just how interlinked the key people were, having worked together at different stages of their careers.   
8. 17 Equations that Changed the World by Ian Stewart - from Pythagoras and the square root of minus 1 through to chaos theory and Black-Scholes this book looks at a set of key equations and their impact.
9. Talk Lean by Alan Palmer - a book about effective communication based on ‘The Interactifs Discipline'
10. Five Go Gluten Free by Bruno Vincent - amusing digression from the more serious books !
11. The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge - systems thinking and the learning organisation
12. Running Well by Sam Murphy and Sarah Connors - great introductory book to world of running including technique, exercises and injury advice
13. Secret Believers by Brother Andrew - presented as a novel but rooted in true stories of christians in Islamic states.
14. A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics by Daniel Levitin - excellent book whose ideas and examples are increasingly important as more and more data is presented to us.
15. Outside Insight by Jorn Lyseggen - conventional decision making in organisations focusses on internal data.  This book argues the case for also looking at external data and what insights it can give you into your customers and competitors.
16. Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science by Brian Fay - Each chapter answers a question and through this the book tackles issue of how we exist independently or in conjunction with others including cultural and social differences.
17. The Ethics Toolkit by Julian Baggini and Peter Fosl -This is a great book that provides short summaries and examples of ethical concepts and approaches.
18. The Rooster Bar by John Grisham - holiday read, law students facing large debts turn to hustling accident victims
19. Revelation Road by Nick Page - amusing tale of his journey through the remains of the 7 churches of Revelation
20. Inside the Banking Crisis by Hugh Pym - British perspective on the banking crisis
21. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman - classic text on EQ and its importance
22. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - really engaging read on the impact of the highly improbable and the two worlds of mediocristan and extremistan.  You'll see I was inspired to read another of his books following this one.
23. The 2020 Workplace by Jeanne Meister and Katie Willyerd - being close to 2020 it is interesting to see how much of what they forecast in the book (published 2010) would already be considered “old hat”.
24. Good Value by Stephen Green - a book of personal reflections and thoughts.  Interesting to think about capturing your own thoughts and beliefs in a simple list. 
25. Survival of the Savvy by Rick Brandon and Marty Seldman - really practical advice and guidance on high integrity political tactics in an organisational context
26. Predictive Analytics by Eric Siegel- Great overview and intro to the topic of predictive analytics with masses of examples of how they are being used across many diverse contexts. 
27. The Rules of Success by Karsten Drath - reviewed as part of the Chartered Management Institute’s Book of the year award, it provides some guidance on how to overcome setbacks.
28. Research Truth Authority by Gary Rolfe - written specifically in the context of nursing but a good overview of different research philosophies. 
29. Great Revivals by Colin Whittaker - exploring examples of church revivals from across the globe and back as far as 1734. 
30. Janesville, an American Story by Amy Goldstein - Detailed account of the human stories behind the closure of a GM plant, the community response and broader impact of the change.  A lot of suffering and huge impacts to lives with some people finding new purpose and role.  
31. Rationality & Power by Bent Flybjerg - fascinating insights into the story of the Aalborg project
32. Educating for Responsible Management edited by Roz Sunley and Jennifer Leigh - collection of contributions looking at how the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) can be embedded into business schools' approach to teaching.
33. The Collaboratory edited by Katrin Muff - collection of contributions on setting up and running collaboratories in various contexts to create spaces for collaborative working
34. Algorithms to live by : The computer science of human decision by Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths - seeing how algorithms are relevant to the decisions and challenges we face in normal life
35. Capitalism 4.0 by Anatole Kaletsky - capitalism won’t be replaced, so long as it evolves
36. The State of Africa by Martin Meredith - astonishingly deep and broad review of the history of Africa since independence, sometimes encouraging but often sad and disheartening.
37. First find your Hilltop by Roy Calvert, Brian Durkin, Eugenio Grandi & Kevin Martin - covers the 7P model of drivers that we all have in differing degrees
38. Nice Work by David Lodge - the coming together of the worlds of academia and gritty industry
39. Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore - new edition of the authoritative text on coaching with the GROW model
40. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami - intriguing story of death and love
41. How women rise by Marshall Goldsmith and Sally Helgesen - identifying 12 habits that are disproportionately likely to be factors that affect women as they progress their career.
42. Do Greater Things by Robby Dawkins - inspiring stories of salvation and healing 
43. Quiet. The power of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain - well considered and researched book exploring differences between us and how some of our assumptions may be gross simplifications and misleading
44. Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey - one of the seminal texts underpinning some approaches to coaching.  Unsurprisingly, a strong tennis focus, but clear insights with much wider applicability.
45. Running up that Hill by Vassos Alexander - engaging story of the author’s participating in a range of ultra running challenges including the Spartathlon
46. Organisation Theory: Challenges and Perspectives by John McAuley, Joanne Duberley & Phil Johnson - Comprehensive discussion of multitude of approaches to organisation theory - who knew there were so many different approaches out there !
47. The Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford - extensive consideration of the impact that rapid advances in technology could have on our lives and society
48. Succession by Marshall Goldsmith - looking at the challenge of preparing for CEO succession and the role of coaching.
49. Journeys of Hope II by Christians Against Poverty - inspiring stories of how the CAP organisation is transforming lives of people facing seemingly impossible debts
50. Organization Theory. Selected Readings edited by DS Pugh - Seminal writing on the topic.  Oldest being 1912 paper by FW Taylor on Scientific Management.
51. God on Mute by Pete Greig - tackling the vexing question of unanswered prayer
52. Fooled by Numbers by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - engaging exploration of probability and why we are so bad at understanding it
53. Grateful Leadership by Judith Umlas - highlighting the impact and arguing the case for leaders to focus on acknowledgement instead of just recognition.
54. 401 by Ben Smith - The extraordinary story of Ben’s life and his 401 marathons in 401 days challenge, changing lives and raising money to combat bullying.

A year of Parkrunning

Today is my Parkrun Birthday so I thought I'd look back over the last year.

September 9th 2017 saw me complete my first parkrun - Winchester Parkrun #227 where completed my 5km with a mixture of walking and running, posting a time of 40:12 as the 309th person to finish from a total of 318 participants.

Somewhat to my surprise I discovered I liked it and returned, steadily reducing the amount of walking and seeing my times get faster as the weeks went by.  In the last year I have done a further 46 Parkruns to leave me just 3 short of qualifying for my 50 t-shirt 😄.

I've run in the sun, rain, wind, snow and plenty of mud over the winter - always with a supportive and friendly group of people.

I was there for the 250th Winchester event and, by finishing behind someone photogenic, made it to the front page of the Hampshire Chronicle ( all be it blurred in the background).







Most of my runs (38) have been at Winchester but I have also visited the following park runs..

• Southampton - amazing to be part of a group of over 800 participants
• Cardiff - conveniently placed near drop off point for a university interview
• Queen Elizabeth - beautiful setting in the forest if a tad hilly 
• Eastleigh - memorable for being the only one with a water jump!
• Gorleston Cliffs - not as hilly as the name might imply to a non Norfolk resident
• Shelton Mallet - memorable for youngest run director
• Basingstoke - another big event and Tennis Court Hill 
• Durham - great finish by river with Cathedral in background also furthest walk from finish back to the car

I've posted 15 Personal Best times and have a current PB of 27:40 - with a goal of getting below 25 next spring.

Along the way I have also achieved my "Groundhog day" badge by completing the same course in 2 consecutive weeks in exactly the same time ( 32:10 at Winchester on 17/3/18 and 24/3/18 ).

The seconds in my finish times have included 36 of the possible 60 different readings, getting the remaining ones to complete the set will get increasingly hard.

(Thanks are due to RunningChallenges and their browser extension for some of the stats quoted above)

More significantly, I've also discovered the joys of running more generally and will soon be completing my first 10k race and in October the Great South Run.

I wonder what the next 12 months will bring?

Adding Parkruns C and D to the list

Over the last few weeks I've had the chance to add 2 more letters to my growing collection of parkruns I have completed.

Given that we were taking our daughter to an interview day at Cardiff Metropolitan that meant we were at the campus for 8:30am on a Saturday it would have been rude not to have taken the opportunity to do the Cardiff Parkrun a few hundred meters down the road.   A popular event with well over 700 people taking part made for a crowded start line though the field rapidly spread out along a lovely course beside the river.

Last Saturday a visit back to Durham offered the opportunity of a morning visit to the University Sports Centre at Maiden Castle for their parkrun.  I remember visiting the sports centre to play squash   but that was while I was at school so fair to say it was a considerable number of years ago.   Another lovely riverside course, though recently changed and hence not quite as described on the web site.   The finish line is some distance from the start and the route back is not 100% obvious.  Given that you don't get any marshals after the finish line I recommend you find someone who looks like they know where they are going and follow them - or do what we did and ask someone when you find yourself at the boat club.

With C and D added to the list I'm now up to 7 letters in my parkrun alphabet.    Will be back in Winchester for a few weeks now though I think aiming to cross that 30 minute barrier.