Parkrun

Last year we discovered Parkrun, which is a free 5km run held in parks all over the world every Saturday morning at 9am. All you need to do is register, print out a personal bar code (if you want your run to be timed), show up at the park, run 5km and present your bar code at the finish line. Because you get your run timed, you are able to see how much you improve from week to week.

We took part in the Reading Parkrun a few times last year, taking turns with Hannah to run and look after the children. Two weeks ago we started to get back into it. Because the Reading Parkrun location has been flooded, we tried out the Woodley (also Reading) Parkrun. Two weeks ago only I took part and Lindsay and the kids were marshalling.

There were 150 odd people running. We did three laps around Woodford park (in Woodley, Reading). It was a great atmosphere.

My time (27:52) was nowhere near my the PB that I got in New Zealand, back before having kids, but I am working on it and trying to at least get back into the vicinity of it.

Last week Hannah and I took part, while Lindsay was kind enough to look after the children again. It was raining heavily, so the turnout was quite a bit less than the previous week.

There were parts of the track that were incredibly muddy and slippery. Whenever I passed Lindsay and the kids, they ran along side me for a while. Maybe Yana will be able to do one of the three laps soon. I just bought her some running shoes today. Despite the slippery paths I was a few seconds faster than the previous week (27:22).