99 not out!

Anyone who as spent anytime listening to me rabbit on about running - and for that I sincerely apologise - may also know that my other passion is data. Wait! Come back! I promise to keep this brief and interesting. Well mildly interesting anyway.

So when the opportunity arose to combine both...well you can imagine my joy. Running and data all in one neat package. Actually, when I say 'data' (or 'darta' if you prefer the Kiwi pronunciation) what I really mean is information, facts and figures. When it comes to the collection of such stuff I'm a bit of a digital hoarder. Want to know what we were doing on the 15 August 1999? No problem. We were sunning ourselves in Morar on the West coast of Scotland. How do I know this? Well my photograph database tells me this. A photograph database I hear to ask? Really? Well what else am I supposed to do with over 20,000 photographs? No good keeping them in a box. Or hidden away in the dark corners of a hard drive for that matter.

It's the same with receipts. Want to know when we bought our now defunct Alphason TV stand? No problem, 31 July 2010. Am I sure? Of course I am, I have a scan of the receipt stored in our document hard drive. I probably should delete it but you never know. I guess its a digital version of a man-drawer. You know, the one where you put batteries of indeterminate charge, cables, old phone chargers, pizza menus and a Boulder Dash Gameboy cartridge that you bought off eBay despite not even owning the console to put it in. Well it was an investment opportunity that I couldn't pass up.

It's a bit of a compulsion really and I probably need psychological help.

Where is all this leading? Well this coming Saturday will be my 100th parkrun and presents a excellent opportunity reflect and dissect upon the achievement. You see rather than have a lie in on a Saturday morning, I have been rising, putting on running shoes (and clothes before your imagination runs away with you!) and travelling to a local park to complete a 5km course. This coming Saturday will be no different, and for the 100th time I'll eschew sleep and tip-toe out of the house trying not the disturb those who might be sleeping.

So for those brave enough to keep on reading, let's take a look at the story the data tells. I warn you there will be graphs but all done in the best possible taste.......

Still here? Great. Well it all started on the 9 June 2012 in the sleepy town of Basingstoke in Hampshire........

Well it almost started. Although this was my first foray into the sociable world of parkrun, it would be another seven months before I chalked up my second run. This wasn't, however, due to a lack of interest but rather lack of opportunity. Well a convenient opportunity anyway. You see it wasn't until December 2012 that a parkrun started up in our home town of Darlington....which I missed because it was the night after my work Christmas party and I was in no fit state to run. In fact I had trouble just standing up!

It's fair to say that winter is not the best season to encourage people to put on running shoes and hurtle around a local park. But Darlington did just that and 109 keen runners turned up on the 5 January 2013 to accompany me on my inaugral South Park parkrun and put the town well and truly on the parkrun map. Incidentally, if you're interested, the Darlington South Park parkrun has gone from strength to strength and now regularly attracts over 300 runners.

If 2013 cemented my involvement in parkrun you wouldn't know it. The following year, 2014, I didn't manage to turn out for a single parkrun. The simple excuse is that, for the first part of the year, I was training for the Edinburgh Marathon and didn't have the time for the parkrun. I was far too busy stressing over running further to bother with a piddling 5km. It never occurred to me that I could be combined the two!

Then, I relocated to New Zealand which I'm sure you can imagine was a little bit distracting, hence my total disappearance from the parkrun statistics. It doesn't really explain why I didn't take it up again on reaching the Southern Hemisphere. It's not as if the climate wasn't favourable for running or that I didn't have parkrun options. Maybe I was just to phased by the whole living on the other side of the world thing? Or maybe I just couldn't be arsed. I'll let you decide.

It wouldn't be until 2015 that my relationship with parkrun recommenced and on the 17 January 2015 I completed the Cornwall Park course and ended a 560 day parkrun drought. Of course I didn't know this at the time but my 12th parkrun rebooted my parkrun participation. I can only say that it must've been the agreeable weather, although slightly too warm for serious running, or the friendly people. It certainly can't have been the course because Cornwall park has a bastard of a hill around 2km into the run. Locally known as Dead Man's Hill, this 1km long dip us just what you need in the middle of a 5km course on a warm summer's day. Not!

I was on a roll and just didn't know it! Having made my first appearance in an international parkrun, there was no stopping me. I've since turned out for parkruns in Australia in four difference locations, and the US where I completed the Crissy Fields parkrun with the Golden Gate Bridge as my backdrop. I must say that, on that balmy day in Basingstoke, I had no idea that I would go onto to complete over 80 parkruns on foreign soil.

In fact, the records will show that I have participated in no less that 16 different parkruns in four countries, from the country park of Sedgefield to the humidity of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territories - 30 degrees at 7am WTF - and the beautiful serenity of Western Springs.

Whilst I am on the topic, a special mention must go to our current home parkrun. Western Springs, on the face of it, seems like quite an ordinary place to hold a parkrun. Just three laps around the lake and, apart from a few bumps, it's a relatively flat course. Simple. It may look like a serene parkrun location but just beneath the surface it's a bit of an animal. Literally. Being located next to Auckland Zoo, it's not unusual to be accompanied on the run by the trumpeting of elephants or the roar of lions. I'm still expecting one day to look over my shoulder only to find a big cat hunting me down. At least it would be good for a PB.....assuming I could finish with all appendages attached! For the time being, however, I'm happy with my personal best time at Western Springs of 21:21.

I've come close a few times to beating the time I set on the 13 August 2016 but I kinda like the symmetry of that time. 21:21 has a nice look to it don't you think? Besides, it's some way off the course record at 15:55 so why bother?

I'm quite happy with my cluster of times, somewhere in the mid-twenties. There has been a few glitches in my performances, some due to illness and others self-inflicted. Like the time on the 29 October 2016 when I mistakingly ate breakfast before running and vomited into the toilets half way around. At least I made it to the loos - can't imagine it would've been particularly nice for my fellow competitors to have to avoid a chunky-spew lake. It's enough having to plan a route through swan poo without adding partly digested cereal into the mix. I'll leave that there and probably have said too much.

But what the statistics don't show you though, is the main reason that hundreds turn up week-in-week-out at their local parkrun. Friendship. Without that essential ingredient, a parkrun would be nothing more than a jog around a local park and certainly wouldn't encourage repeated participation on a Saturday morning. I have met some fantastic people on my little adventure around the parkruns of the world, be it a short chat before the run, longer discussions over coffee after or proper friendship through meeting in the same place at the same time.

So I must say a big thank you to all of the people that I have met, ran alongside and supped coffee with. From the organisers and volunteers at each event, strangers who have welcomed me to their event and everyone at my local parkrun. Thank you for 99 wonderful memories and I look forward to another 99, wherever they may be.

On that note, I'll just leave these here.....well it's not all about numbers is it?

Kitted out for the Darlington South Park parkrun

I'm not a fair-weather runner!

Welcome to New Zealand and Cornwall Park parkrun

Western Springs. My adopted parkrun home

Finally! My 50th parkrun was completed on the 28 May 2016

Getting ready to tackle the Melbourne Albert Park parkrun. Watch out for F1 cars though!

Hamilton parkrun is a really well run event. And flat!

Errr! I think this was Christmas Day? Not sure about the pink wig though.

This is either Hull or San Francisco

Puarenga in Rotorua must be one of the most unique courses.

Sweaty and tired in Darwin

Volunteering is an essential part of parkrun, although it looks like we could also help out on the building site next door!

The Western Springs crew!

The Road to Somewhere

I’d imagine that for most people, the last place that they’d want to be on their day off would be at work. Which technically wouldn’t be a day off except for the fact that they’re not getting paid. Thankfully most people aren’t engineers.

You see, to an engineer, there is nothing more interesting to do on your day off than to go and look at some engineering. It’s true. Sad, but true. It was a long running joke for a while that once, whilst out on a shopping trip with my parents and heading to the pub for a well earned pint, both my Sarah and I stopped in our tracks as we passed a fenced off area, stared down into the huge hole that had been dug and discussed what was going on, why, and what the risks were. Only an engineer could find a hole in the ground more interesting than a pint in a pub. 

Anyway, even I would draw the line at visiting my own project whilst 'not working'. That was, however, until today. Today, my project was having an Open Day so what else was there to do on a bright and sunny Auckland Sunday than to jump in the car and see what was going on. A busman’s holiday so to speak. Which is kind of fitting because the first thing we did when we got to the designated car park was to jump on a bus.

Before I go any further, and to attempt to quell any thoughts that I’ve lost my mind, there are some mitigating circumstances that I feel compelled to explain.

Firstly, this is no ordinary project. The Puhoi to Warkworth PPP is the construction of 18km of brand new motorway through mainly native New Zealand bush. In completing the $800m project, 150 Ha of forest will have been removed, 7 bridges will have been built, 11 million cubic metres of earth will have been moved, nearly 8km of drainage culverts constructed. But before all that, erosion and sediment control ponds have been built, bats monitored, snails rehoused and 26 endangered gekos relocated. Well technically it was 26. You see we first had to find them and once the proverbial needle in the haystack exercise was completed, they were transported to Auckland University for safe keeping. The University did such a good job that upon our return there were actually 28 gekos ready for a new life on the other side of the road. Clearly a nice break in a warm hotel being fed and watered was good for the geko libido and certain gives a potential answer to 'Why did the geko cross the road?"

As well as increasing endangered animal population, the completed motorway will finally join Warkworth to the motorway network and remove the need to travel on one of the deadliest pieces of road network in the country. At its peak, sometime next year, the project will employ 500 people and utilise over 250 pieces of earth-moving machinery. And if that doesn’t make you want to jump up, get on a plane and take a look then you’re clearly not an engineer!

Secondly, my partner is also an engineer so was curious to see what was going on. Admittedly there wasn’t a hole in the ground to take a look at, not yet anyway, but there was some big machinery on display. And a sausage sizzle. What more could you want for a top day out?

One day this will be all roads...well one road but you get the idea

My plan was, if you can call a loose idea formed whilst walking across the car park such a thing, to attend incognito. Keep my head down and see what was going on. A bit like a secret shopper I suppose. Not that I thought that there would be anything untoward or faintly dodgy going on, but as a member of the Client team I didn’t want to be seen to be interfering. Unfortunately my ‘plan’ didn’t last long.

“Good morning, shouldn’t you be helping out?”, joked the guy* on the registration desk. 

Rumbled. And there was I thinking that my sunglasses, hat and the fact that I was wearing shorts was an effective disguise.

* Note - I obviously know this persons name but in the interests of anninomity I’ve left it out. It’s not important but I didn’t want anyone to get the impression that I’m one of those client who doesn’t know the name of people on the project. If it bothers you let’s just call him Trevor, which is obviously not his real name but somehow it seems less impersonal.

As the bus wound its way along the haul road on the way to the site complex, another colleagues gave an introduction to the project and pointed out things of interest, with only the occasional glance in my direction. As I sat there staring out of the bus window, as an ordinary member of the public, I reflected on what an impressive job the contractor was doing in engaging the local community and was in no doubt that this was, in part at least, due to the level of enthusiasm that the team showed when talking about it. The people on the bus were clearly interested and a barrage of questions occupied the short 20 minute journey. They can’t all have been engineers. The more likely explanation is that they were all locals and are keen to see the desperately needed piece of infrastructure completed.

After traversing a tempoarary bridge, the bus arrived in the site complex. As we hopped off the bus Kar.....err ‘Bob’.... smiled and asked “I hope I got all of the facts right!”.

‘Note perfect”, I responded.

The usual sea of white Utes (Utility Vehicle or pick up truck) had been cleared from the site complex and in their place was an array of displays, food stalls, demonstrations and an area that had been fenced off for two pieces of large earth moving machinery. Against the fence was a colourful sign announcing ‘Free Dump Truck Rides’.

“Oh my god, I’ve got to get a go in that!”, I thought to myself, “That will be sooo coool!”

Maybe I'll get a go on Monday?

...and then my sensible head took over. It would not be a good look for the one of the project team to be seen riding in the cab of a 40T dump truck, grinning like an idiot and waving. I grudgingly accepted that my sensible head was right. Besides, I could just wait until Monday.......

By the time we had seen all of the displays, checked out the equipment on display and eaten our own weight in sausage sandwiches, we decided it was time to head off. 

With the bulk of my involvement due to end next July but construction not due to complete until 2021, it’s doubtful I’ll still be involved when the ribbon is cut. But whatever happens it’s really a great privilege to be involved in such a project, even just to be a small part in a huge machine (I’m back on machinery again - sorry), and to really make a difference. It was certainly not something that I was expecting when I arrived into New Zealand.