200th parkrun: Crissy Field, San Francisco

Extreme tourism day, today...

Good Morning, San Francisco (view of the Coit Tower)

Mrs is over here in California fairly regularly with work. I've always been envious of her runs at Crissy Field parkrun, in the shadow of the famous Golden Gate Bridge. Well, this time I decided to come over with her and have a bit of an explore round San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View while she worked.

Which means... Crissy Field parkrun!

Looking back to the financial district

We are staying in the financial district of San Francisco, which makes for a nice 5km warm up to get to the start.

For some reason I thought this was to be my 199th parkrun. When the event director asked if anyone had any significant runs today (50th? 100th? 200th?) I even called out "does 199 count?". It wasn't until I received my results email I saw that I'd run my 200th parkrun without even realising!

Brave swimmers in the bay, wouldn't catch me in there without a wetsuit

Obligatory tourist photo #1: Alcatraz

Obligatory tourist photo #2: The Golden Gate Bridge

Today there was "another event in the park" (parkrun parlance for when a parkrun is cancelled because something else is going on - such as a big race, fun fair, or show). Crissy Field organisers are not dissuaded so easily and the run went ahead, we simply set off in between two waves of the other run - an easy solution, flawlessly executed.

First-timers' run briefing, lots of tourists so plenty of interest

The course is an out-and-back promenade style route, with a folded P at the end. Kingston-upon-Thames is the closest that comes to mind. As it was down the coast it's flat and potentially fast, though there are a lot of other park users to be aware of so care is required.

Crissy Field parkrun route

The surface is 90% gravel and sand path with a short tarmac section at the turn-around. The surface is well tended, but hard to run very hard on as there's always a little bit of effort lost on each step with this kind of surface.

Nearly time to go!

As always at parkrun, pacing in the pack was terrible, and most set off at full pelt only to slow significantly between the 2nd and 4th kilometres. I like this as it means there are people to reel in over the run - a good motivator to keep your pace up!

I put some good effort in and logged a time of 22:24 to come 26th overall out of 104 finishers.  Pacing was good with kilometre splits of 4:32, 4:38, 4:27, 4:27, and 4:18. A slight tailwind on the return leg was welcome! Here are the full results from the day.

Someone putting in a big sprint finish effort!

The event team were very friendly and welcoming - they must have one of the most varied of all the parkrun populations, with the majority of runners being visitors (and predominantly from the UK).

Won't lose me in that vest

The Crissy Field tail runner is the last person in the world to finish their parkrun. In contrast, whoever is the fastest finisher in the New Zealand parkruns is the first in the world to complete their run, over 20 hours earlier!

Super-happy to see a green star on my parkrun map in the USA!

Race Report: Blairgowrie annual New Year's Day fun run (plus 3x parkrun!)

New Year's Day always brings with it the excitement of the once-per-year parkrun double, an opportunity to complete two official parkrun events on the same morning. It's the only day of the year that the parkrun pixies will allow two times to be logged for a single athlete, and runs that are near each other have taken to pairing up and offering locals an early run, then a later run at a different course with ample time to drive, cycle, or sometimes jog between the two. There's even an official Christmas Compendium page to help you plan your festive fun.

Once upon a time way back in 2012 we even did three in a day (Bushy, Nonsuch, and Riddlesdown), but that's a story for another day (and no longer permitted under the current rules - bah!).

It's a special day for the parkrun tourist community as we get a chance to go to some far flung corner of the world and run a pair of runs that we wouldn't normally get to. Two years ago a group of us went up to Middlesborough to run Stewart and Albert parkruns. Last year we kept it local as Mrs had just had an ankle operation, so we took a short drive West and I ran Woodleigh and Reading parkruns while she patiently waited in the car (love is...).

This year, as New Year's Day was a Friday, we get to play on Saturday too and so we decided to make a long trip somewhere to take in three local runs. Never having completed a run North of the border, I voted for Scotland, and so we booked a few nights at a hotel in St Andrews and headed off up North on the train. Camperdown (Dundee) and Perth parkruns were staging a double, with Camperdown starting at the traditional Scottish parkrun start time of 9:30 and Perth, a half hour drive away, starting at 11:00.

I noticed on the Perth parkrun page mention of another run in the area, the 30th annual Blairgowrie New Year's Day fun run - turn up on the morning, register, and for £2 enjoy a 6-ish kilometre run around the town. Sounds fun, and my training plan called for 18km, so count me in! (I can't include a link to the event page because it seems as soon as an event has happened, Discover Blairgowrie deletes it!).

After seeing in the New Year to some seafront fireworks (and my first ever sight of the Northern Lights) and one or two (or three) cocktails, we tucked up early (ish) to get some sleep ahead of our New Year's Day trio of runs.

NYD run 1 - Camperdown parkrun, Dundee

First on the list was Camperdown. Mrs plumbed in the postcode to the hire car satnav, and we were off. There was hardly anyone else on the roads so our trip was uneventful. We arrived at about ten-past nine, and there was a constant flow of cars arriving behind us - lots of Perth running club tops, clearly doing the double was popular!

9:15 in a frosty car park in Dundee - this is how you celebrate New Year's Day!

Camperdown was cold, the leaves and grass were very crispy under foot and made a satisfying crunching during my warmup jog. I had a quick chat with the event director who said they were very pleased with the turn out.

Cold Camperdown-selfie!

We set off roughly on time. The course is a large loop on the side of a hill, quite muddy down the bottom, and with some good inclines to warm us up.

A good turnout, event team were very happy

I ran round with Mrs and finished in a respectable 29:57 with plenty in the tank for the next run.

NYD run 2 - Perth parkrun

We joined the parkrun procession from Dundee to Perth (or at least, we joined the back and overtook most of it, thanks to my right foot), and arrived at a very slippery car park in a sports centre - home of Perth parkrun.

This is a golf course, site of the regular Perth parkrun event

Tricky little put at the 9th

I was concerned that the event may be cancelled, they had a lot of flooding in the area and their Boxing Day parkrun was cancelled as flood barriers were in operation in the park they use. Their facebook page had been updated and showed quite some resolve to stage an event - they even designed a new course just for the day, designated the C course (as the A and B courses were still blocked by flood barriers). The parkrun double is clearly a serious business up here!

Event director explaining the new C course, just for us New Year's Day doublers

The C course was two laps of an out and back style course, with the start/finish line half way along. I call these "promenade" courses - in fact the course layout was exactly the same as Hove Promenade parkrun.

It was clear why they had to go to unusual lengths - the park was still completely flooded. I'm very grateful to the event team and volunteers for being so determined!

This was to be the 100th run for Mrs, so I got her announced by the event director on the start line and she got a round of applause - congrats on your 100, sweetie!

Me & Mrs before her 100th parkrun - black t-shirt time!

The run was uneventful, and a bit slippery in places, and we ran across the line together to finish the pancake-flat 5km course in 28:54.

This was pretty cool - a bicycle counter - wish I'd seen it yesterday!

NYD run 3 - Blairgowrie annual New Year's Day fun run

This was the wildcard of the day. Another 25 minutes in the car saw us arriving at Blairgowrie, a small town North of Perth. This was the 30th year of this event, and the 12th year there had been a walkers option too.

It looked like the entire town had come out for the day, and most of it was crammed into their little town hall. I registered and got my race number, and milled about waiting for the start. The walkers went off at 12:30, with the runners due to start at 13:00. It was almost as if it was planned so that the park runners could get their from Perth and make it a triple-run day! There were certainly more than a few faces that we'd seen in both Dundee and Perth.

Looking a bit tired - ready for the third run of the day

Well over 100 walkers had set off at 12:30. and at least as many runners assembled for the start of the run. There was no parkrun "it's not a race it's a run" ethos here - this was going to be a race! I hadn't run hard for a while, and with 12.5km in my legs already from parkruns plus warmups I thought I'd go for it and see what happened.

Over 100 walkers awaiting their start

My legs took about a mile to warmup - two runs plus driving in between is not kind - and my feet were very aware that I'd changed from fairly padded grippy trail shoes to my lightweight and virtually grip-less road shoes. 

The prizes were very "local"

Warmed up I got, though, and I started reeling people in. My pace steadily increased round the all-road circuit. It was roughly square in layout, and had a few gentle inclines to keep it interesting. I worked really hard in the last quarter to catch a couple more people, and managed to make every overtake stick - with the exception of a young girl who didn't take kindly to being overtaken in the last kilometre. She fought back and overtook me, before producing an amazing final few hundred metres and beating me by a good 15-20 seconds. I settled for a sprint finish with a gangly teenager who I just about beat on the line!

I don't think there are any timings published as it's just a fun run, and there were no chips or people with clipboards, so I'm not sure what position I finished in - but according to my Garmin I ran the 6.15km in 29:02 - after a slowish start I'm quite happy with that!

Saturday run - St Andrews parkrun

It was a cold blustery morning for the short drive out to Craigtoun Country Park for St Andrews parkrun. The park has ample parking, and there was once again a steady stream of parkrunners arriving. It was a good turn out - St Andrews had elected not to hold an extra New Year's Day event, so this was their first run of 2016.

The route is on a shallow hillside, so half the circuit is up, and half down, with a flat straight-isa segment along the bottom. The laps are short, so we go round a little over three times with a wiggly bit added onto the end to make it up to 5km.

Round and round (5 times, including warmup and cool-down)

I started slow, but soon decided to pick up the pace. I enjoyed reeling people in all the way round, and finished in an all-out sprint with a tiny child (parkrun is such a great leveller - where else can you get into a sprint finish with a 10-year old just as easily as with a 60-year old?). We accelerated more and more over the last 50m or so, and I let him just pip me to the finish line (there's no glory in actually beating a small child in a sprint finish in front of dozens of adult spectators :).

Today's time showed I put a bit more effort in, and my official result had me at 24:40.

What I learned in Scotland

I learned three things during my trip to Scotland:

1) Nothing can be done without pipers piping. Nothing. At all.

2) People drive really quite incredibly slowly (we got stuck behind many cars driving at 40mph on fast national speed limit roads, and one in particularly who was barely managing 30mph!).

3) It's dark. Although I lived in Scotland for three years, that was a long time ago. I'd forgotten that in Winter it doesn't really bother with daylight - it's a cycle of night time, to dawn, to dusk, and back to night time!

Our steed for the duration - Volvo XC60 D5 R-Design, not a bad drive

It was fun though, I enjoyed my New Year parkrun tourism with bonus local fun run. I wonder where we'll go next year?

Juneathon day 20/30 - Aldenham parkrun, inaugural event

Today marks the 2/3 point through Juneathon, 20 days of consecutive running out of the 30 day challenge. I decided to celebrate by attending an inaugural parkrun event. Inaugural events have taken on an odd hue of late - the number of inaugurals attended used to be on the most events table and qualify you for entry onto the table, but the column disappeared a while ago.

These days a most events table entry looks like this:

17th position (L-R: name, club, total different events, total UK events, total global events)

There followed a sustained period of heated debate about if tourists should go to inaugural events at all as it places a heavy (believed to be unacceptable) extra load on the brand new team at their first event. There were tales of stressed event teams, and much anxiety. There were also plenty of stressed tourists who had enjoyed inaugural hunting as a kind of purist element of parkrun tourism.

We also knew that at an inaugural (when there was generally only one on any given Saturday) we were likely to see our fellow tourists.

Unfortunately I think the hyperbole on the topic didn't do much to give new event teams confidence - they imagined uncontrollable hordes of tourists descending on their parks and overwhelming them. We started to see communications from new events requesting that tourists wait a week or two before visiting. A visit to an inaugural became something you didn't really shout about, attending a first run event risks community disapproval and attending an event on its second, third, or fourth running becomes a badge of honour.

I stayed out of the debate, the Internet - and in particular Facebook - is not the place for nuanced conversation!

As it was I did pull back from inaugural hunting, but I miss them. I like the joy on the faces of new parkrun parents as their pride and joy comes to life. I like that no one knows where the course is or the route, and the excited discussion afterwards about "that bit with the mud" or "the wobbly bridge".

So I will be going to inaugurals when it's convenient, I may even travel a bit like I have done before. But I will keep an eye out on the tourist Facebook groups and if a new event is worried and would prefer a softer start, I'll show some respect and attend at a later date.

Two laps, one hugging the shoreline and the second taking a shortcut

So, with all that in mind I hopped in the car and drove to Elstree and Borehamwood to visit
Aldenham parkrun's first event. It was a nice morning for running, not too hot, quite overcast, and the odd spot of rain. We got to Aldenham Country Park at around 8:35 and immediately spotted some parkrun regulars to catch up with.

100 Aker Wood (as featured in Winnie the Pooh) seems to be the biggest attraction, and around the grounds are the houses of the characters. Nicola took some great photos in the wood - I wish I'd had a wander round myself now!

The run was a good one - I decided to go for a bit of (what I call) pace after plodding along for most of Juneathon so far. The surfaces were good, some concrete along the Northern side of the reservoir and mainly firm trail through woodland for the rest.

Pacing was good at around 5 minutes per km for the first 4km, and then a faster one to finish - my official time being 24:49, a second better than my watch time. There were 78 finishers in the end, a lovely size for a new parkrun. The event team were happy, and the runners gave unanimous praise.

Good luck for the future, Aldenham parkrun!

My Juneathon totals: 20 runs for 141.67km in 14:29:03

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I welcomed the New Year form an unusual place - the bar of a Toby Carvery in Middlesborough. Why was I in Middlesborough? parkrun, of course (did you really have to ask?).

The Christmas holiday period is always fun in parkrunland. The wonderful Event Directors, ably assisted by their armies of volunteers, not content with giving up their time for free on Saturday mornings for fifty-two weeks per year like to put on extra events for us lucky parkrunners on both Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

A couple of years ago in the parkrun wild-west there weren't any rules as to how many extra events could be put on, it was up to the individual events to decide. All parkruns start at 9am (in England and Wales at least), but on these special days some events started later. This opened up new opportunities, and the plucky parkrunner could find two events near each other at convenient starting times and run them both.

New Year's Day 2012 was the peak of this opportunity, with a couple of "triples" possible. I ran Bushy Park with a 9am start, Nonsuch Park with a 10am start, and Riddlesdown Park at 11am, franticly cycling between. Riddlesdown was a bit further from Nonsuch than I'd bargained for - thankfully they knew a lot of runners were driving coming over so delayed the start for 15 minutes. Cycling, I was even later - I started at gone 11:20, running with the last of my energy down the start trying to catch sight of the tail runners. For a while the 31:12 was my personal worst time - still not bad considering the clock started five or six minutes before I'd even got there. It was a fantastic New Year's Day, and the experience was more than a little responsible for my now deeply rooted love of parkrun.

Now, with the global phenomenon of parkrun and new runs starting up almost every week it's been necessary to have a few more rules and regulations. This includes when extra events are permitted (now just Christmas Day and New Year's Day at this time of year), and how many events "count" - a maximum of two per day. If you can find a triple to do, the third won't count towards your totals (you can still log it as a "freedom run" though, should you wish to).

My first trip to the North East zone since Darlington South inaugural on 15th Dec 2012

So this is why I was in Middlesborough - to take advantage of a New Year's Day double on two courses I haven't visited before. This is the kind of behaviour that brought "über-tourist" into the parkrun lexicon. There are people more parkrun-bonkers than me, of course, and I had the pleasure of the company of some of the bonkersest (that's a word, OK?) in Middlesborough.

On New Year's Eve Mrs and I met up with Louise (@abradypus and 8th on the UK Most Events table), Vanessa (@neferpuss and 10th), Ian (16th, on 80 events the same as me, but I rank higher as I've attended more inaugural events), and Nicola (@RoundshawOnTour and 32nd) on the train to the North East. Fizzy wine was consumed, as were BabyBel. Two of my favourite things.

We got to the Premier Inn, Middlesborough Central South, about 10pm. Über-tourist Rosemary joined us in the Toby Carvary next door. Convenience was the name of the game, so after a few more drinks and some "3, 2, 1, Happy New Year"-ing it was time for bed.

The delight that is Stewart Park parkrun

Slight headache pushed to one side by Premier Inn fry-up and coffee the temperature of the centre of the Sun and we set off to parkrun #1, Stewart Park. It was pretty damn cold out, but the park was beautiful. I ran round with Mrs in 28:46. A nice even pace as we had a lot further to go today.

A quick mince pie at the finish and a group of five of us set off to jog the 4km to Albert Park. I'm not sure if anyone else ran across, but I didn't see anyone. A few who were making the journey by car gave us friendly pip-pip and a wave.

For Albert Park I decided to see how much I had left, I wanted to get under 25 minutes. I huffed and puffed my way round to come in at 24:28 - I'll take that, thank you very much. A final jog back to the hotel for a shower, and it was off on the 12:50 back to London.

Albert Park, watch out for the icy wind by the Lower Lake!

This 6-week period is about building mileage and being in a good place to kick off a 12-week marathon training plan ahead of Rotterdam in April. It's going pretty well, I think. Happy New Year all round.

Oh, and if you haven't tried parkrun, give it a go - it's great.

Preston's Perfect Parkrun

I took a trip to Preston on Saturday to support their inaugural parkrun event - I wrote it up on @parkrunfan's blog - check it out here.