Adam in Runderland

It was twelve years to the week since I ran my first parkrun. I was lined up on the start line in Dulwich, south London hoping to break 18 minutes for the first time. A new PB at the age of 48. Could I do it? Rewind to that first parkrun on a sunny Saturday in September 2012. Five months previously I had run the London Marathon with no training and severe cramp, announcing that running was not for me. Now I found myself lining up with 150 local runners in a park at 9am preparing to run 5km. At 36 I was already past my prime and had discovered running late through that charity entry to the marathon. A few months later and the memory of the pain had subsided, leading me to approach a man in a high viz jacket to enquire why all these people were running around my local park. He shared about parkrun and invited me along to the next one. It was free. It was timed. It was weekly. And it was a much shorter distance than a marathon. I reasoned that if I had run/limped/crawled 26.2 miles, then

I had never considered visiting Salzburg, but when a friend of mine invited me to stay with her family for a few days in the Austrian city I took her up on the suggestion and flew out for four days of running, sight seeing and a special bike tour. This is a running blog so I'll stick to giving an account of that, but I must recommend  Fraulein Maria's Bicycle Tours  that my friend helps lead. The famous musical, The Sound of Music, was filmed in Salzburg and the four hour cycling tour takes groups to some of the featured sites. Along the way songs from the film are played and the guide gives insights into the cast and characters. I joined one of the groups and can highly recommended the tour - even though I haven't seen the film - yet! Back to the running.  Salzburg is in the west of Austria just a few miles north of the German border, and at the entrance to the Eastern Alps. It is most famous for being the birthplace of Mozart. The city is built along the banks of the Salz