Adam in Runderland

It has been a tough week. I've forced myself not to run for seven days and I don't like it. Why the enforced lay off? Partly it was because I felt unwell last week. I became paranoid I might have Cornoavirus despite having none of the symptoms.  I read a good article in Runner's World about the need to rest and realised I hadn't had more than four days off since...well, I can't remember when, certainly the last year. Maybe straight after my Run The Date Challenge in September 2019. So I haven't run since last Tuesday morning and it is now the following Tuesday night. I plan to go out tomorrow.  I think it has been good to give my body a break, but also my mind. I find the more I run, the more I want to run. The challenges I set myself also take over and dominate my thoughts. Last week all I could think about was completing my parkrun 20202020 challenge and how quickly I could finish my attempt to run Lewisham Borough . Now my mind has stilled. This is a good a...

At the beginning of the year I felt I needed to set a challenge for 2020. After some thought I decided on running 20 different parkruns. This didn't seem challenging enough and so I chose to run them all in under 20 minutes. My PB is 18:27, but that was on a flat course five years ago. I lived in Folkestone at the time and worked out that I would need to travel throughout Kent and into London to reach my target. The first two were easy and local. Ashford is a flat course and was just up the road. Folkestone was my local run. Then came lockdown and a house move. In March parkrun was abruptly stopped by the Coronavirus pandemic. At the end of the month I moved to London. I had to decide what to do about the challenge I had set myself. Never one to give up, I decided to finish it with or without official parkruns. I would run the courses on my own. This had the advantage of meaning I didn't have to wait for Saturday to come around. On the other hand I wouldn't have others t...

My final parkrun of this challenge was Sixfields Upton in Northampton. I was back up north for a week's holiday staying at my father's house. On the Tuesday morning I headed over to Upton, a housing development adjacent to the football ground. An area of land was reserved for a country park when building the estate. This is the location of Northampton's second parkrun - the first being at the Racecourse . Sixfields Upton course is a simple double loop starting at the Elgar Community Centre and heading in a clockwise direction. The track was a narrow path through green trees and bushes which passed a field full of sheep and emerged next to the River Nene. A green bridge was the signal that I had run half a mile. From there the path continued to curve around to the right until it reached a gate. Yes, a gate. I hadn't realised that this course contained a number of gates which, when parkrun was officially taking place, were held open by marshals. On this day there were no ...

NENDY. My Nearest Event Not Done Yet was Hilly Fields. Why? Because it is a bruiser. The clue is in the name. I've avoided running it as part of my challenge because I thought I would never be able to get a sub 20 minute time. However... Today I felt brave. I also reasoned that, whatever the time, it was another London parkrun ticked of the Lon-doing list I've surreptitiously started. I kept the warm up short - 1 mile - and then hit the initial downhill section hard. I hoped to get some time in the bank for the big hills to come. It is a very strange course. Three clockwise laps starting with a big loop that ends with a tough climb before diverting off down a steep path that leads to a shorter and even steeper grassy climb. Back around again with both hills, and then on the third loop you tackle the climbs before heading back towards the finish the opposite way to which you started. If that makes sense... Anyhow. I reached the first climb and as soon as it started my legs felt ...

I set off at 6:30am aiming to get to Clapham Common, run the parkrun course and then return in time to start work. It would be a fifteen mile round trip plus the parkrun so the pressure was on. Not only was time short, but I would have to climb the steep Forest Hill to Horniman Gardens on the way there and back. It was a muggy morning and by the time I had reached Dulwich I was feeling pretty drained. A bad week of sleep and a late night hadn't helped. When I arrived at Brockwell Park I had an idea. Rather than do another two miles to Clapham I could instead tackle the more difficult Brockwell parkrun. I had avoided it due to the elevation (Clapham is flat, Brockwell has a climb that you run twice), but it would save time and the extra mileage. Maybe if I really pushed I could scrape under 20 minutes. The sun had come up and the park was full of runners. I felt my spirits lift seeing them and decided to go for it. I had studied the route before so I knew the course. A full lap of t...

Here is an update one month on from my last post about trying to run every street in Lewisham Borough. August 12th September 14th  A you can see I have managed to complete large swathes of the map. I hope to fill in a few of the smaller areas in September. That will then just leave the complicated and time consuming parts of Sydenham and Deptford. A rough calculation shows that I have done about 160 miles of this map in the last month. Probably about the same to go as I have to get there and back too. I should still be on course to have it finished by the end of the year despite the nights drawing in. I'm not sure I want to be running the streets at night with a head torch.

With all the street running of recent weeks I really needed a break from concrete, traffic and buildings. After scanning the map I settled on a drive to Farningham on the edge of the North Downs. There is a path following the Derwent river through the rolling hills which passes by a parkrun in Lullingstone. Perfect I thought. The course seemed a simple one to follow so off I went. I arrived in the beautiful village of Farningham where I parked up (for free!) and found the start of the path. After a steep uphill climb I was soon overlooking acres of green countryside. The clouds had cleared and it was a clear sunny summer's day. I wound along the valley beside the gently running water and past Eynsford viaduct carrying trains from London to Sevenoaks and beyond. A further climb led me to a wood and I enjoyed running the tracks through the trees. I met a couple of runners who were heading to Sevenoaks. I was tempted to join them, but instead crossed the golf course down to Lullingsto...

Two parkruns in two days. This time I had the chance to run my old stomping ground - Northampton. I used to live in the town and this was when I first started to run. After completing the London Marathon on my second ever run(!) I went along to the local parkrun at the Racecourse. There were about 50 people there. By the time I left to move to Folkestone they were getting over 400 every week and I had run over 150 events. The course is one of the quickest although it does have a couple of steepish sections. It is also exposed which means that you can get a strong breeze. On this day it was overcast and drizzly with a fair wind from the south-west. I started my watch by the children's playground and started the first (long) loop that goes north and then diagonally to the far north-east corner of the park. A sharp turn through the trees results in a full length of the park on a gradual descent for almost a mile. At the bottom I turned left along the short side and then turned left to...

Tooting Common was the next parkrun on my list. I had only found it as a friend of mine was in Stretham and asked if I wanted to run with him while he was in London. I couldn't run with him in the end due to a stomach problem, but a few days later I headed over there. It appealed because it was not too far away, pancake flat and an easy course to remember - a simple obtuse triangle run three times in an anti-clockwise direction. In order to miss the traffic I left at 6am and arrived there about half an hour later. There is free parking for users of the common and the Lido there. After a very short warm up I just went for it and indeed the course was so simple even I couldn't go wrong. There was a small straight past the café followed by a sharp right turn which marked the top of the triangle. The tarmac path crossed the width of the common passing the Lido and some tennis courts and then turned left again when it reached the main road on the other side. The path here became sof...