The Covid Year
2020 Resurgence
New Year's Resolutions
New Year's Day Double
A Year of parkrun Adventuring
Weekend Doubles
Sri Chinmoy Track Marathon
Western Sydney Half Marathon
Mid Year Reflections
Sri Chinmoy Royal National Park 10km
100 parkruns Milestone
March Recap
Reflections on Motivation & Planning
February Recap
Shellharbour parkrun
January 2019 Recap
Reflecting On 2018
2009 Relay For Life
Photos by Robert Nash
St George District Athletic Club Merit Award
Running Challenges & parkrun Fun!
21 Jul 2019
Running Challenges is a Chrome extension / Firefox add-on that allows users to play games with their parkrun results. Full details are available at https://running-challenges.co.uk and it's easy to see from the photo of Steven Garamy's pirate costume when he completed the Pirates! challenge just how much fun this can be.
Of all the available Running Challenges I have decided to actively pursue completion of the Cowell Club, Alphabeteer, Pirates! & Stayin Alive options. These will provide me with quite a few competing goals to keep adding fun to my parkrun adventures.
| Date | parkrun | Challenge |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Jul 19 | Batemans Bay | Stayin Alive "B" #2 & Cowell Club #24 |
| 3 Aug 19 | Cronulla | Increase p-index to 4 |
| 10 Aug 19 | Huskisson | Alphabeteer "H" & Cowell Club #25 |
| 24 Aug 19 | Bathurst | Stayin Alive "B" #3 & Cowell Club #26 |
| 7 Sep 19 | Gungahlin | Stayin Alive "G" #2 & Cowell Club #27 |
| 21 Sep 19 | Forster | Alphabeteer "F" & Cowell Club #28 |
| 5 Oct 19 | Galston | Stayin Alive completion & Cowell Club #29 |
| 19 Oct 19 | Picton | Cowell Club #30 |
| 2 Nov 19 | GreenWay | Cowell Club #31 |
| 16 Nov 19 | North Sydney | Cowell Club #32 |
| 30 Nov 19 | Curl Curl | Pirates! completion & Cowell Club #33 |
| 14 Dec 19 | Mosman | Cowell Club #34 |
| 28 Dec 19 | Willoughby | Cowell Club #35 |
In addition to these "official" challenges, I have come up with a couple of my own personal challenges. There is no badge for completion, just a personal sense of achievement.
Greater Sydney Challenge - I drew a box around the parkruns that exist in and around Sydney & found there are currently 28 locations to be run in order to complete this personal challenge. My current progress is shown on the following map with 15 of 28 having already been completed.
2020 Challenge - As the name suggests this one is being planned for the new year & will be my biggest sustained parkrun touristing streak to date. There is a good mixture of Sydney locations as well as NSW country & interstate locations to drastically expand my parkrun horizons. My weekly goals will include a variety of goals including Cowell Club, Alphabeteer & personal bests.
| Week | parkrun | Location | Travel Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shellharbour | Illawarra (NSW) | 156km |
| 2 | Rouse Hill | Sydney (NSW) | 126km |
| 3 | Euroa | Murray River (VIC) | 1406km |
| 4 | Rooty Hill | Sydney (NSW) | 126km |
| 5 | Urunga | North Coast (NSW) | 1062km |
| 6 | The Ponds | Sydney (NSW) | 120km |
| 7 | Nepean River | Sydney (NSW) | 136km |
| 8 | East Richmond | Sydney (NSW) | 152km |
| 9 | Varsity Lakes | Gold Coast (QLD) | 1730km |
| 10 | Dolls Point | Sydney (NSW) | 40km |
| 11 | Armidale | North Coast (NSW) | 1014km |
| 12 | North Wollongong | Illawarra (NSW) | 102km |
| 13 | Urunga | North Coast (NSW) | 1062km |
| 14 | Rooty Hill | Sydney (NSW) | 126km |
| 15 | Kamay | Sydney (NSW) | 68km |
| 16 | Rhodes | Sydney (NSW) | 80km |
| 17 | Albury Wodonga | Murray River (NSW) | 1090km |
| 18 | Penrith Lakes | Sydney (NSW) | 140km |