Tribute to John Kynaston

Very sad to hear the news of John Kynaston's passing on Tuesday 12th January 2021. John was such a big inspiration for me to write my own blog which I started way back in 2009 after reading many, many of his blog entries. Not only that but I have him to thank for adding me to the http://whwblogs.blogspot.com/ blog roll which connected me to so many other people in the ultra runnning community. It not only allowed me to share my experiences with them but allowed me to find all about the people in Scotland running ultras. While I still follow whats going on in ultras now, I was obsessed with ultras back then and loved the spreadsheets with splits from races that John used to produce. Pouring over them to see how peoples races developed. In the last 6 years this blog has been focused on parkruns and parkrun was where I met John a few times. The first at Pollok when John was doing his warm up while I was walking to my marshall position and he stopped for a chat. The second was at Linwood a week after he completed the Northern Traverse. He was at Linwood cheering on runners that day and I remember passing him, he gave me such a boost with his encouragement and I remember congratulating him on his previous weeks accomplishment. The amount of content John has produced in terms of blogs, podcasts and you tube videos has been nothing short of phenomenal. I will miss it. He was so enthusiastic and such a great runner too, so disiplined in planning and training for races. It's not surprising that he achieved so much in running. Thoughts are with his family at this difficult time. RIP John