Nicola Forwood

Name: Nicola Forwood

Home parkrun: Leeds Hyde Park

First parkrun: 03/11/07
Total parkruns to date: 105
Different parkruns to date: 18
Number of times volunteered to date: 3 or 4 (not enough!)

My parkrun stats: click here

Twitter: @NicolaForwood

Blog: http://nicolaforwood.blogspot.com/

Hi, I’m Nicola, or if you listen to ‘the parkrun show’ then I am Nicola Forwood or ‘She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’! This all started after I made a flippant comment about my parkrun dream being to get a mention on the show, since that dream was achieved I dreamt about entering the 100 club and getting on the ‘Most Events’ table, both of which I have also now achieved. 2012 needs bigger parkrun dreams and believe me I have been dreaming :) sub 25 would be AMAZING and hopefully it’s possible although it’s something I never thought I’d be able to achieve.

I didn’t fall in love with parkrun when we first met. In fact I was not overly enamoured at all. I didn’t parkrun again for over 6 months. In fact, the grand total of parkruns I had under my belt after the whole of 2007 and 2008 was a measly 7! My obsession with parkrun has only really developed in the past two years; I ran 44 parkruns in 2011 taking me into the 100 club on Christmas Eve when I SMASHED my PB of 27.11, running 26.06! I also became a parkrun tourist, running 15 different parkrun courses in the year and I am now fixated on the ‘Most Events’ table and climbing my way up to the top (a girl can dream). parkrun resulted in me joining a run club (the amazing Hyde Park Harriers) and getting a whole new circle of friends, running friends. It's great to have loads of lovely people to run with any day of the week, now my running is not just on a Saturday morning.

This week I was visiting friends in London and their local parkrun was Brockwell which happened to be where ‘the parkrun show’ presenter Danny Norman was running. It was most amusing to witness his OTT introduction; I made good use of my extremely loud whistling, ironic whooping, cheering and clapping; “YEAH DANNY WOOOOOOO”! A good way to start a parkrun; lots of giggling! :) I almost got away with swapping my 0120 tag for Danny’s 0001 tag but unfortunately he noticed! Probably the closest I’ll get to ever winning a parkrun! :D

My favourite part of parkrun is the community feel when having a coffee or going for breakfast afterwards followed in close second by my sprint finish (always my favourite bit of running!). Next week sees a new parkrun starting in York and after then who knows; the parkrun world is my oyster! I hope to meet some of you all on your parkrun journeys……until then, happy parkrunning everyone :)