The Dragon Runner

100 parkruns Milestone

30 Apr 2019

With just two weeks until I celebrate my 100th parkrun I thought it would be a good time to gather my thoughts on all things parkrun.

What is parkrun?

From humble beginnings as "Bushy Park Time Trial" that featured 13 runners and 3 volunteers on 2 October 2004 at Bushy Park in London, England parkrun has grown into a global juggernaut with 1513 events every week across 19 countries. Everyone is welcome - from Olympic athletes to grandparents & children, with competitive & social runners as well as walkers coming together to form one big community.

The first parkrun expansion occurred during 2007 with the addition of a second event at Wimbledon Commons in London, and the adoption of a new name "UK Time Trials". Further expansion followed with six more events in England in 2007 before moving into Scotland & Wales during 2008. A short-lived event in Zimbabwe was launched in 2007 near the childhood home of parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt. The longest running parkrun event outside the UK began in Copenhagen, Denmark on 16 May 2009 and led to further international expansion in Northern Ireland (2010), Australia & South Africa (2011). Australia's oldest parkrun is Main Beach parkrun located on the Gold Coast which was established on 2 April 2011 by Tim Oberg.

My early parkrun experiences

I ran my first parkrun at St Peters on 12 January 2013 at their 52nd event having been the first parkrun event in NSW in January 2012. At the time I was looking for some summer runs to help prepare for the upcoming winter cross country season, and the course at St Peters was not ideal for this in my opinion. In the three weeks I went to St Peters parkrun, the course was changed due to construction work in Sydney Park & I thought the narrow twisting paths struggled with the 150 runners. After my third parkrun I made the decision that parkrun was not for me as I really wasn't enjoying the experience so I stopped going.

By November 2014 parkrun had expanded throughout Sydney, and when my boss expressed an interest in running I met him at Parramatta parkrun which was the closest one to his home. I was not in any semblance of fitness at that time & I was unable to win the distance runner (me 41m 26s) versus the sprinter (my boss 34m 36s) challenge - to be honest it wasn't even close! I did however like the course of this event, with it's wide mostly flat paths along the banks of the Parramatta River at Ermington. I returned to Parramatta parkrun on 16 September 2017 where I ran 29m 6s which remains my all-time parkrun personal best result.

A new start

Another couple of years passed before I tried parkrun again, this time with Rick Patzold at his home Shellharbour parkrun. I read the course description before attending & knew from Rick that there were hills, but I massively underestimated them! On 22 October 2016 I ran my 6th parkrun and my first at Shellharbour, an occasion that really changed the way I thought about parkrun. This was not going to be another short fling - the course was super hard but stunningly beautiful at the same time. There was no concrete or sealed pathways anywhere on the 5km loop, we ran on grass, dirt, gravel & sand. My time that day was likely to be the slowest 5km run I had ever recorded in my life, but I just knew it was so special that I had to go back again & again.

I changed my home parkrun from St Peters to Shellharbour the evening after that first run at Shellharbour, and by the end of 2016 I had completed 8 runs at Shellharbour and improved my time from 44m 36s to 38m 1s. In 2017 parkrunning had become an unmissable part of the weekly routine, and my whole family was running & walking there as well. We all loved that parkrun was a great family friendly event that was held on Saturday morning, leaving the rest of the weekend free for everything else. I now have run 55 times at Shellharbour parkrun & all of my volunteering has been here. My best time of 31m 18s was recorded on 2 September 2017, however I am still working on achieving the very elusive sub-30 minute time on this course.

A family holiday to Adelaide in June 2017 provided the opportunity for my first true "parkrun tourist" experience when we completed West Beach parkrun on 17 June 2017. West Beach is an undulating concrete pathway course that follows the Torrens River upstream from the beach before returning to the start. The river here more closely resembles a canal, and the highlight is the horses living in the narrow paddock between the path & the river.

In August 2017 everything changed - I found myself living back in Sydney & so Menai parkrun became the closest event to my home. I have never thought of this as a tourist run as it's so close to home, it's my second parkrun home. Menai is a two-lap out-and-back course, and the first event of this type I had completed. It's run on sealed pathways the whole way, with one very narrow footpath section necessitating opposing runners to yield with most runners using the rough grassy footpath verge on the out side. The whole lap is hilly - either up or down - and very little of the course is flat which helps to make this a very challenging run. I have run here 17 times with a best time of 30m 59s.

Becoming a parkrun tourist

My love for parkrun tourism was kindled when I attended the launch of North Wollongong parkrun on 9 September 2017 with a group of friends from Shellharbour parkrun. The organisers were surprised by a then Australian record for the largest parkrun launch with 646 runners cramming into Stuart Park and Puckey's Estate at North Wollongong that prompted further discussions by Wollongong Council leading to switching the start/finish location to the other end of the course at Fairy Meadow to ease traffic & parking at Stuart Park. This is a great offroad cross country course, with a tough section south of the lagoon due to the cross camber of the grassed surface.

I visited Dolls Point parkrun & Panania parkrun in October 2017. Both are fairly flat, fast courses on paved walking paths, and both are smaller events with under 100 runners most weeks. I will always prefer offroad cross country courses to pathways so it is not likely that I will return to these in the near future.

November saw me visit Cronulla parkrun for the first time, where I found a super hard course with soft sand hills. Despite being very slow compared to my other parkruns at this time I loved every minute of it. This is another small event with 32 runners & I had to work hard to not hold up the tail walker too much. My time of 39m 11s on that first visit remains my best here, but I am planning to return for a third visit soon to improve this result.

2018 was a testing year, where not much went to plan in the first half. I was injured at Narrabeen Allnighter (Jan-18), fell sick at Ultra Trail Australia (May-18) & reinjured at the Sri Chinmoy Track Marathon (Jun-18). This left me with a grand total of 7 parkruns from January to June, with times that were mostly forgettable. The only highlight from this period was a tourist run at Cooks River parkrun on 5 May 2018 just before UTA where I finished in a more respectable time of 35m 57s. As I set about recovering from the setbacks & rebuilding myself as a runner in the latter half of 2018 I completed 10 runs at Menai & 9 runs at Shellharbour.

I completed a unique challenge known as "Groundhog Day" at Menai parkrun on 1 September 2018, which involved finishing with the exact same time at the same parkrun event on two consecutive parkruns. Later in the same month I attended the launch of Cowpasture Reserve, Camden parkrun with a couple of other runners from Shellharbour where I again began to think about parkrun tourism. The year was finished with 6 parkruns in December at my beloved Shellharbour home including two runs decked out in a full Santa suit on December 22 & 25.

Having fun exploring new places

With the new year I became a comitted parkrun tourist starting on 1 January 2019 with a New Year's Double at Campbelltown & Bowral with Rick Patzold. I then continued to run at a different location every week, with only Shellharbour being completed more than once. I've completed runs at Rooty Hill, Menai, Shellharbour, Rhodes, Chipping Norton, Goulburn, Kamay, Lochiel, The Beaches & Sandon Point this year and joined the global parkrun tourist Most Events list having completed more than the required 20 locations.

Most of these courses are run on paved walking paths, and most are fairly flat which has seen my times improving from 40 minutes plus to under 35 minutes. Kamay was a tough run, with a few hills on the two lap course; Lochiel in the Adelaide suburbs had some hills too but I really enjoyed this run & finished with 34m 21s - my fastest parkrun since October 2017 & a huge confidence boost as I closed in on 100 parkruns. The Beaches parkrun in Newcastle is different to every other parkrun, & is without doubt my favourite course after Shellharbour. This event is completely run on the beach, with waves breaking gently across the entire length of the double out-and-back course. Being all on sand, it is a difficult event & not the place for pbs.

#reset #refocus #rebuild #health #fitness #wellness #beactive #challengeyourself #pushlimits #becomebetter #dowhatittakes #nevergiveup #metime #newlife #fitter #faster #stronger #jorg #upandrunning

April Events

Date	Event	Time	Temp & Elevation	Weight
April 6	The Beaches parkrun	42m 49s	17c ~ 41m	97.9kg
April 7	Lindfield Rotary Fun Run (10km)	75m 14s	21c ~ 91m	98.5kg
April 13	Sandon Point parkrun	37m 18s	19c ~ 23m
April 20	Shellharbour parkrun	Timekeeper
April 21	BUMS Easter Madness Half Marathon	3h 50m 12s	19c ~ 413m	100.8kg
April 27	Shellharbour parkrun	34m 58s	14c ~ 73m	99.7kg

April Statistics

Running: 48.3km	Walking: 11.9km	Cycling: 0km	Steps: 242,543	Weight: 0.5kg loss
YTD: 179.9km	YTD: 98.5km	YTD: 40.4km	YTD: 1,029,892	YTD: 12.7kg loss