parkrun streaks

I love streaks and find that they are an excellent way to keep motivated, and where better to use them than at a parkrun. Here are a few ideas for streaks at parkrun:

Standard parkrun streak:

With this streak you are only focusing on the number of continuous parkruns you run without missing a week. The advantage with this is that you can vary the venue that you run at and still maintain your weekly streak.

Single event streak:

This is the streak that I am currently focused on. I started this streak with Riddlesdown parkrun event 1 and have run every single event since. My streak now stands at 43. I know that the maximum number I can reach is 55, because at that point I will be forced to miss a week as I will be out of the country.

Monthly streak:

The monthly streak is good for those of you that can't make it to a parkrun every single weekend. All you need to do is make sure you run at least one parkrun every calendar month. I am currently on 12 consecutive calendar months.

Personal best streak:

How many personal bests can you run in a streak. Adjust it to suit your own needs. Maybe this is best measured on a monthly basis to avoid overdoing it. For example, you could aim to get a new personal best each calendar month or even just every year.

Volunteering streak:

As you will all know, volunteering is a huge part of parkrun. So why not make a volunteering streak one of your goals. If you are a committed runner then you may not want to give up too many runs. The great thing is that you don't have to! You could volunteer each week to set up the course, or you could even write the event report. For me, I think a monthly streak is the way to go, and I would like to volunteer once per month, for now it will be focused on report writing, but once my running streak has been broken (see above) I am going to try out a few of the different on-the-day roles on offer.

Attendance streak:

Where you mix running and volunteering and both are valid as part of the streak.

The 50 run streak

You participate in 50 parkruns in the shortest number of days possible. Technically this doesn't have to be a streak, but I like the idea so stick with me on this one. On the surface, this looks like a simple case of 351 days (50 weeks), but it is usually possible in less than that as many venues put on extra events over Christmas and New Year. If you took part in the New Year's day trifecta you can make this streak even shorter. From my calculations, if you had run all of the extra events it would have been possible to have done this in 309 days (44 weeks). My calculation does not include any of the bespoke parkruns so mathematically it probably could be done in less days. I am working on this one and I think I can complete it in 323 days (46 weeks).

The 'remembering your barcode' streak

You remember to bring your barcode. See how many events you can run without forgetting it. This one could have some comedy value to it, especially for serial offenders!

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So, there you have it. A few ideas for parkrun streaks. If you have any of your own ideas be sure to share them in the comments section (or even write a parkrunfans blog post about it).

If you want to see how I get on with my streaks just pop over to my blog.

parkrun inspiration

I've been thinking about what I could write for this blog. It wouldbe very easy to talk about how great parkrun is, but I'm assuming thatyou all know that already. So I thought it would be nice to have a lookat who (without mentioning any names) inspires me at my home parkrun.

Let'sstart with the speedy ones. They must train pretty hard to be able torun 5km in the times they do, and I do aspire to be as fast as them.But do they inspire me? I'm afraid the answer is no.

Who does inspire me then?

• The runner that has taken up running in order to combat his type-2 diabetes.



• The volunteer that has run tens of marathons and is still a keen runner, yet chooses to give his time to volunteering.



• The runner that finishes in last position almost every week butstill turns up because they know that their finishing position doesn'tmatter.



• The volunteers that have no interest in running but turn up in allweather conditions to make sure that the runners get their weeklyparkrun fix.



• The runner in the 80-84 age category that turns up every now and then, and who finishes sub-35 each time.

They are just the ones that I can think of, I'm surethere are others (and I feel bad for missing them off of this list)which will come to mind in the next few days.

Sometimeswhen you're feeling down that you can't quite break into that elusivesub-17 club, have a look around you at the other amazing people thatare around you every week. Talk to some of the older or slower runners- I bet you find out some pretty inspirational facts about them.

Steve
(from blog7t)

New Contributor: Steven Stockwell

Name: Steven Stockwell
Home parkrun: Riddlesdown, UK.
Date of first parkrun: 28 May 2011
Total Number of parkruns: 32 (as of 6 January 2011)
Number of other parkrun locations run: 2 (Banstead Woods and Roundshaw Downs)
Number of times volunteered: 2
My parkrun history: click here

I was checking my twitter feed recently when I received amessage from Ian (@parkrunfan), author of the parkrunfan blog. As I already write a blog about running, he asked if Iwould like to be a contributor to a new blog he was setting up. I wasvery flattered to be asked and instantly jumped at the chance. Here is a very brief overview of my parkrun journey to date.

I registered for parkrun on 22 November 2010. It took me another six months to actually get up early enough on a Saturday morning to run atmy first event (I blame the long cold winter). The closest parkrun to me is approximately 25 miles away and involves a stint on the M25, which can be quite unpredictable at the best of times.

My home parkrun has a very strong family feel to it, and I always have support in the shape of my wife and daughter. At first that is all theydid - support me. But before long they started to volunteer while I ran. To date my wife has volunteered twelve times, including seven occasions as the official photographer. As time went on we began tojoin the volunteer team for the post-run coffee and we slowly got to know people. We now count many of these people as friends, and often to refer to them as our parkrun family.

My own volunteering record is still pretty small. I have written two event reports for Riddlesdown, which is stressful but rewarding. The other report writers have set the standard pretty high and I never feel thatI can match their quality! To date I have run at every Riddlesdown parkrun since the inaugural event back in July 2011. I hope to continue this streak until the 50th event. After that I have a few volunteering roles on my to-do list that I'd like to complete. Then who knows, maybe I'll become a part-time parkrun tourist!

Steve.