Surprisingly enough my running year this year has focused on parkrun. Although I have run slightly less parkruns this year than last year, I think my obsession level is still pretty high.
Tourism
Before this year, the maximum amount of new parkruns I had visited in one year was 6. This year I started to think I wanted to try and do all the Scottish ones. And with 11 for 11 challenge I wanted to do more parkruns that I hadnt done before. In fact I ended doing 22 new parkruns this year, 20 Scottish and 2 English ones. The thing is as well I did a lot of the furthest away ones in Scotland too - Thurso, Alness, Inverness, Elgin, Kirkwall and 5 of the Aberdeen ones. Then Crichton in Dumfries and Girvan down south. Then a few in Edinburgh and Fife too. Its been awesome. From the planning to the train journeys to the parkruns themselves. Its been a lot of fun. The only thing that hasnt been as fun is I've learned I'm not that good at sleeping in hotels. But everything else has made up for it. And Thurso and Kirkwall were the only 2 nighters so for most of them, one nights lost sleep I can catch up on. At the time of writing I am now up to 38 Scottish parkruns out of 56. So still a fair way to go. But pleased with what I have achieved this year.
250 project/milestones
In about February 2018 I was on about 129 runs. And I set myself the 2020 target of reaching 250 runs. So basically a 3 year project. I reached 175 last year, so the target this year was 210. Currently I'm on 219. So well on track and hopefully will reach 250 next year. This in turn meant I passed another landmark this year of 200 runs and I also did my 100th Pollok parkrun.
Sub 30 Average project
This year I set myself a target of having an average time at parkrun of under 30 minutes throughout the course of the year. This was going really well for the first half of the year. But as summer past my times went up and down. I did have a period of going to my home run Pollok more which is one of the tougher ones to get a good time in. I did have a few good months in Autumn. But then October to December I didnt get out as much during the week as I should of and also volunteered more. The thing is as well if I have a few bad runs I can end up runnning 37-40 minutes. And I can't trade that off with running a 20 minute run to make up for it. It takes several runs. But it is a fun challenge so I'll probably give it another go next year.
I wasn't actually a million miles away from my sub 30 minute average time. It was actually 30 minutes and 33 seconds. Compare this to 2017 (31.04) and 2018 (31.52). And it does show that I have improved this year. So that's a positive.
Times generally
26-27 minutes - 2 times
27-28 minutes - 4 times
28-29 minutes - 8 times
29-30 minutes - 6 times
30 + minutes - 22 times
Compare that to last year where I ran runs of 30 minutes or more - 35 times - So a markable improvement.
Volunteering
For the 3rd year running now I have been volunteering at Rouken Glen juniors quite a bit on a Sunday. Its been a real privilage and a great hangout for me on a Sunday morning while at the same time feeling like I am giving something back to parkrun after all its given me. I have mainly been doing tail walking too so a bit of excercise has been a bonus. In terms of 5k volunteering I did have plans to volunteer more but they never really surfaced till later in the year. I was meant to volunteer at Pollok in April but I had to cancel due to sickness. I did volunteer at Drumchapel in May but it took till October to volunteer again as I was too caught up in running. Then I realised I should be taking my turn more so in the final months in the year so I made sure I was volunteering at least once a month.
Heatmapping
I did have a plan to do heatmapping which is bascially trying to run round all the streets in an area. I think I did about 7 runs and it worked wonders in getting my long runs. However, the further away I got from home the more complex it got in terms of working out distances and routes and my brain got frazzled. So I moved on to normal longer runs for a bit before cutting down milage after the Milport 10 miler.
Overall I have really enjoyed this year and I hope for more of the same next year. I'll go into my goals in the next post.
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