scaryblog

Another trip overseas! 04/07/26 : Moussette  The big family holiday this year was taken in Canada, which resulted in much excitement amongst the family parkrunners because Canada Day is July 1st and this counts as a special day when they're allowed to put on additional events - which was doubly exciting because it was a Wednesday and so counts towards the daily challenge (the only chances here to get non-Saturdays are Xmas and New Years Day, which rudely always fall on the same day of the week). However, we were in Montreal at the time and the closest parkrun which was actually happening was in Ottawa which is 200km away and I'm not sure the family non-parkrunners would have been too happy about us disappearing for the day just to tick off a Wednesday, so it seems like we're going to have wait until 2030 for a Wednesday parkrun. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait that long for a Canadian parkrun because a mere three days later we were in Ottawa on a Saturday so could c...

The third parkrun write-up! 01/08/26 : Roosevelt Island DC  Heading back in time to August we come to an event which it's very unlikely I'll ever do again (but never say never!). But first, some background as to how I came to be there - and where there actually is! As a reward for our youngest doing her GCSEs she was offered a trip to the US to watch a WNBA game (it's fair to say she's a BIG fan) - which sounds like a nice offer on our part but resulted in a whole load of soul searching for her because she couldn't decide who to support and hence what her preferred destination was. EVENTUALLY, the Washington Mystics were settled upon as the team of choice and hence she & I found ourselves heading over there for a few days at the end of July. And one of those days was a Saturday, so obviously the opportunity to experience an American parkrun had to be taken advantage of. There are three parkruns in the greater DC area, but the Roosevelt Island event was easily t...

Back to where it all began for the second parkrun write-up! 10/10/26 : St Albans  Back in early 2024, I'd just completed Couch to 5k and was able to finish the distance without walking too often or being in too much danger of collapsing at the end, but I didn't really know what I was going to do next or even if I was going to keep running. One suggestion that came up frequently from the other members of the household was to try parkrun - I wasn't entirely sure it would be quite my thing, but eventually big old brave me screwed up the courage to attend one just to see what it was like. What's the worst that could happen? (believe me, I came up with quite a few scenarios in answer to this). And so, on May 11 2024, I trotted down to Verulamium Park in the centre of the city to attend my first ever event - and I've got absolutely no idea why I attended this one because it's not actually the closest to our house. It could be that the closest one has a somewhat hilly ...

Something new! 03/10/26 : Holywell King George V Playing Fields  Back in the olden days, I used to get up at 8:30am on a Saturday, pop over to the local park to do parkrun and be back home by 10. But then my eldest got involved and she discovered the joy of the app and the challenges therein - and things got a bit more complicated! In my first 100 parkruns, I attended four different events but in the 15 since, for a variety of reasons, I've attended six further ones. And it's been a whole load of fun and interesting to see how different events are organised - which I'm obviously going to forget unless I take some notes. So here we are! Today's trip was a 15.7 km journey taking us to  the twelfth closest event to us which  is the "other Watford" parkrun (the main one is a BIG one, which we'll be covering later) - and, as you might guess, it's in the King George V playing fields in the Holywell area. The reason for this particular trip was to allow Emily...