Reading back on my blogs I have done this year, it hasn't been the best of years running wise. But at the same time I have achieved quite a lot too. Both of which I will be going into in this blog.
Completing every Scottish parkrun event
This is a challenge I have been chipping away at for a few years now. I remember in 2019 where I decided to go for it I made a serious dent in it by completing 19 in one year. I started this year on 44 Scottish events done out of 59. I knew there would be more added around the country this year so aimed for 60 events. In total at the end of 2022 there are now 66 Scottish events with another one having had a test event and awaiting a start date.
In 2019 I remember most things going to plan, with one incident which I thought may derail my attempt. Where on the way to Crathes Castle in Aberdeenshire my bus broke down and I litrally made it to the start with seconds to spare. I thought that day what would have happened if I didn't make it in time, would have I just given up the challenge. Well this year I have had to cancel about 9 trips and I am still chipping away at them. So I think the answer really comes back to yes I am more reslient than I thought as I certainly haven't given up. But why did I cancel all these trips? A real mixture. I was on the way to Stranraer, got to Ayr, then all trains to Stranraer were cancelled and I had to turn back. A few weeks ago I woke up in a Premier Inn in Edinburgh to snow and the trains all started to cancel due to signal failures. Theres been train strikes and reduced timetables meaning it's not been practical to get there. Then you have illness, being wiped out after drinking too much caffine and also the Queen sadly passing away which meant I had to cancel another trip.
But on a positive note I did still manage to do 10 Scottish parkruns I haven't done before. Notably Wallaceneuk (Kelso), Loch Leven, Largs Prom, Palacerigg (Cumbernauld), Torvean (Inverness) and Ganavan Sands (Oban). I pick out these ones as I have to thank my Mum and Dad for driving me to these, some of which we did make a weekend break out of. Some of these in particular are quite tricky to get to by public transport so it helped a lot and allowed me to progress with the challenge. Another one I ticked off was Kirkcaldy where I had a wee road trip with Richie and Caitlinn. Then I had solo trips to Agnew (Stranraer) and Ury Riverside (Inverurie) as well as a very short trip to Elder park in the southdside of Glasgow.
I do find it quite amusing that I started the year with 15 Scottish parkruns to do and even though I have done 10, ended up with 12 still. But there we go. Some other positves is that with Ury done I have now ran every parkrun in Aberdeenshire. Another parkrun I did, not in Scotland was Jesmond Dene in Newcastle. This was done as part of a holiday with half an eye on the Alphabeteer challege. I just have 3 letters to do now, B, Y and Z. But at the moment Albateer takes priority.
Times
I have targetted quite a while of having an average parkrun time for a year of under 30 minutes. As you can see below this year has been the worst year since I started recording average time for the year. But maybe it doesn't give the entire picture too. 20 of these I have been at Queen's my home parkrun which is of course one of the hilliest in Scotland. Another 3 have been at Pollok which is not far behind. Then the other repeats have been once at Linwood, once at Tollcross and once at Springburn. I did get under the 30 minute mark twice this year, once at Largs Prom and once at Linwood but again it's probably the least amount of sub 30s I have in one year. But I don't help myself doing hilly courses so much. It's always nice to have the aim of doing a sub 30 at Queen's though. It feels like a more than reachable target if I can get some consistent training.
2017 - 31.04 (35 runs)
2018 - 31.52 (46 runs)
2019 - 30.33 (44 runs)
2020 - 31.40 (64 runs)
2021 - 30.59 (16 runs)
2022 - 33.21 (35 runs) - 2 tailwalks not included
Milestones
I did reach quite a big parkrun milestone this year reaching 250 runs. 100 was the previous official milestone and 500 is the next one so because they are getting few and far between now I also look at unofficial milestones too. I finished the year on 282 parkruns.
Something I don't really talk about or aim for is volunteering milestones. Truthfully I didn't even have a goal for volunteering as because I volunteer down at Rouken glen mainly you don't know how often they are going to cancel throughout the year and some years its quite a lot. But this year it felt that we didn't cancel nearly as much as previous years. In fact there was times during the year I felt I had quite long stretches of volunteering where I felt I needed to take a week off every now and then. I actually nearly ended up hitting 250 for volunterring where I am now sitting on 248. I did 51 stints this year with 9 at 5ks and 42 at juniors which is my most amount in a year ever by far.
I also hit another few unoffical milestones. My 150th volunteering stint at Rouken Glen as well as my 100th tail walk at Rouken Glen. Another stat which is new to the 5k app this year is total attendence days at parkrun, so counts volunteering and running. This one surprised me a lot as this year I reached my 500th day at parkrun, currently on 517.
Total Miles
Total miles for this year was 331 miles, which is over 100 miles down from last years 468 miles. Right there is another reason my parkrun times have got slower. One of the big differences this year was that the running group I was in disintegrated this year which definitley helped constantly getting out last year.
But all in all I'm still getting out there and that's the most important thing
