running joke

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but one that I did make at the start of 2024 (pretty much the only serious one I've ever made, actually, thinking about it) was to get out to the parkrun a bit more often, and since "a bit more often" is unacceptably woolly and just invites weaselling out or retrospective redefinition of the challenge to accommodate laziness, I made it a bit more specific: at least one parkrun every calendar month during 2024. So that means every month of the year has to include a parkrun, no skipping March and doing two in April, for instance; that doesn't count. 

I am a tedious evangelist for parkrun as a thing - all you have to do is register, save your membership barcode in some form (this used to mean some physical format but as of recently includes just having it saved on your phone), turn up, and run five kilometres (a smidge over three miles). That's it; all the timing and collating of results is done for you, including collection and analysis of your own personal stats. It's great, and for the reluctant runner (something I would definitely class myself as) provides just enough structure and accountability to encourage participation while not making the bar to entry too high. Running with a large group of other people of extremely mixed abilities has advantages as well; some find the whole community spirit and post-run chat and coffee thing delightful, while some (like me) don't really go for that but find it helpful and motivating to run in a group including lots of other people who are not conspicuously thinner and fitter than them but who are nonetheless not succumbing to the temptation to walk for a bit or just jack the whole thing in and slope off for a pint and a fag.

My brief parkrun history is as follows: I became aware of it back in the early noughties when some friends from Newbury started going regularly to the Greenham Common one and (as people tend to do) evangelising their ass off about it to all and sundry. No disrespect intended to those people, but I looked at them and thought, well, I could probably do that. This was around the time that parkrun (which started in late 2004 in Bushy Park in west London but only added a handful of events in its early years) really started to take off, and my first one was at Tredegar House (which bagged the Newport parkrun name as it was the first in the area in 2011) in March 2013, at which I ran a perfectly respectable 28:58 (that's me approaching the finish line on the right). I did another in May of that year and then took a brief sabbatical for around five and a half years before doing my next one at Riverfront in central Newport (which had started up in 2017) in September 2018. 

That pattern of occasional dabblings continued until early 2020 when Nia, who'd been a reasonably regular participant at the junior parkrun (two kilometres) decided that she'd like to upgrade to the adult version. We did a couple, the second of which in March 2020 turned out to be the last one before the COVID lockdown regulations prevented large groups of people getting together to breathe heavily and sweat over each other for around eighteen months. We participated in the first one back at Riverfront in August 2021 (and got our picture in the paper!) by which time it was clearly evident to me that I was on borrowed time in terms of finishing in front of Nia, or even keeping up with her for any length of time. 

Even after that participation was a bit patchy, though - having done three in the remainder of 2021 and an excellent nine in the first seven months of 2022 I then did none in the rest of 2022 and not a single one in 2023, for reasons I have no recollection of and therefore must just have been apathy. And so by the end of that year I obviously felt that some structure needed to be imposed.

Anyway, long story short, having done a total of eighteen parkruns up to the start of 2024 I fulfilled the terms of the challenge by doing fourteen in 2024 - double-up months were the nice friendly summer months of June and August, the second one in August being my first proper bit of parkrun tourism as we went to Wycombe Rye and had a minor celebrity encounter as described here. In renewing the challenge for 2025 I added a couple of optional stretch objectives: do more parkruns in total than in 2024, and have a crack at getting to fifty in total by the end of the year. That second one would entail doing eighteen during the year, something I'm here to tell you I achieved by running the new Llanfoist Crossing parkrun in early December. I'm slightly reluctant to make a big thing of it, although it's significant to me, as I personally know people whose tally stands at well over a hundred and the guy I spent most of the December parkrun behind (though I'd like it noted that I had him in the sprint finish) was wearing a 250 T-shirt, and I have seen a few 500s at other parkruns. 

I fully intend to renew the basic one-per-month resolution for 2026, though I'm not sure exceeding eighteen for the year is realistic. 

A few random observations to finish:

• My personal best progression is a bit of an odd one: while some people spend years nibbling off a few seconds here and there I set a target of 26:11 at my first ever Riverfront parkrun in 2018 and didn't improve on it until May 2025 when I ran 25:44. Not wanting to have that stand for another seven years I subsequently lowered it again to its current mark of 25:29 (at Riverfront again) in August.
• The watershed of Nia's PB being faster than mine was crossed in September 2024 when she ran 26:05 at Riverfront and she has remained ahead since (and I'm sure will permanently). Her current PB stands at just over a minute faster than mine at 24:36.
• You'll notice that Riverfront seems to be a PB-friendly course, and so it is. This is highly dependent on gradient and terrain, and Riverfront is pretty flat and on tarmac all the way. The one at Tredegar House, by contrast, is mostly flat but there are roots and rocks and mud to cope with so it's never as fast. The hilliest one I have done is at Belvoir Castle up in Leicestershire.