Chris Worfolk's Blog

2023 has been one of my busiest years ever and yet a lot of it has been routine stuff that doesn’t make a good blog post, In January I was recoverging from a sprained ankle and dropped by my local Toastmasters club. On the business side, I launched courses on Gestalt Therapy and Scrum.

One of the big projects came to fruition in February when I finished a six-week audit of my existing courses including 172 new lessons. There was plenty of exercise, too, with the Naas duathlon and Virtual Race Series 13. Venla also achieved her marathon wristband at junior parkrun.

It was Sichuan month in March as I finally cracked open my cookbook. We celebrated Elina’s birthday and St Patrick’s Day. Fitness wise, another long-term project came to a close as I finished the Learn to Lift course. Holbeck College launched its counselling diploma path. Unfortunately, I missed both the Bohermeen half marathon and the Florida Manor run due to illness.

Our extended family got bigger in April when my sister welcomed Dougie and Angus into the world. I had a busy month of racing the Phoenix Park duathlon, 300th parkrun and completing my first 100k at the DUHAC 24-hour run. I also tried daily cold showers but decided it wasn’t for me 🥶.

We visited County Clare in May so I could take part in the Lough Cutra triathlon. Unfortunately, I registered my first-ever DNF. I also took part in the Dublin Mountain Backyard Utra and managed 11 laps. In the business world, I launched my course on Positive Psychology Coaching.

We followed our west coast trip with a south coast trip in June, visiting Waterford for the Metalman triathlon and Viking marathon. There was also racing back home at Around the Park, Around the Clock. After 15 years together, we parted ways with the Astra and I launched my Mindfulness for Resilience course.

The World Cup kicked off in July and there was more racing at Kilkenny triathlon. I released my first set of shorts on YouTube.

We hosted Michelle in August and watched a lot of sport with England in the World Cup final and the Tour de France. Jonas Vingegaard was not the only cyclist to watch as Venla got her first bike and I took on Helmsley triathlon. I took my first trip to Belfast with other Hyde Park Harriers to complete the Antrim Coast half marathon. I launched my Motivational Interviewing course.

I was ill for the whole of September. Being unable to run much, it gave me chance to do some parkrun tourism with walks or jogs at Griffen, Waterstown and Dodder Valley.

The touristing continued throughout October with visits to Poterstown, Blanchardstown, St Anne’s and Marlay. I found a new yoga studio and my mum ran her first 10k at the Abbey Dash. We hosted my parents and England outperformed expectations at the Rugby World Cup.

I taught a daily class throughout November as part of my Yoga for Resilience series while Elina and Venla jetted off to visit the family. I also wrote my second novel as part of NaNoWriMo and got my first pair of glasses. There was more parkrun tourism at Hartstown and Father Collins, and I finished my virtual run around Transylvania. Patrick Kielty did his first Toy Show and we ate well thanks to Donegal month and Thanksgiving. Holbeck College launched its life coaching diploma path.

We finished the year with December as is tradition in the Gregorian calendar. I also finished the EduProgram with Trinity Entrepreneuers and Venla sung her heart out at her winter concert. I did some parkrun tourism at Tymon and Darndale, achiving a new best placing of 4th overall and 1st in my age group at the latter. I also completed the Reindeer Run and Chevin Chase. I released an updated version of my productivity course and the first paperback copies of my novel arrived. We finished the year with plenty of family and friends time.

The Chevin Chase has been run on Boxing Day for decades. But I only took part for the first time last year. This week, I was back again,along with 23 other members of Hyde Park Harriers for a muddy, hilly run around the chevin.

The cameras missed me in the wood but here I am looking exhausted having just made it to the top of surprise view.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be the Chevin Chase without the traditional water dip.

My finish time was:

1:08:41

Around three minutes slower than last year. Not bad given I’m now 10% heavier. Lovely to see everyon and a big thank you to all of the volunteers who made the event happen.

My new novel is out!

I did NaNoWriMo for a second time this year and the result was an urban fantasy adventure set on the Dublin Luas. They say everyone has one great novel in them. This is not mine. But it is 30% bigger than my previous one thanks to increased line spacing.

It’s only available from Amazon. Why not nag your local Waterstones about stocking my books?

Yesterday we went to Venla’s winter concert. Her class sang the sharing song with some dance moves thrown in. Well done, Venla!

I didn’t make a lot her events at daycare like sport days and father’s day breakfasts. I did make one and the food was not spectular. And her graduation, of course. But I felt I missed a lot of it because I was so busy working on the business so that, ironically, I would have time to do that kind of stuff. Now the business is successful and I do have time to do this stuff. And it feels great!

Four years ago, I launched my Feel-good Productivity course. Today, I’m pleased to announce a major revision to the course with updated lessons, additional information for coaches who want to help clients, and a new module on teams and workplaces.

It is also now available via Holbeck College and you can preview it here.

Trinity Entrepreneurial Society is currently hosting a series of talks on different aspects of launching a business such as ideation, pitching and emerging technology.

The organisation has been so-so. The first event was announced the day before and placed on Halloween when many of us had plans. Another two of the events were cancelled at short notice. And there was meant to be a social aspect to it but this did not happen, I assume due to low numbers. That itself was frustrating because you hav to apply to to the programme and there is an attendance policy, but that is all false scarcity.

With that moan out of the way, though, the events that did run were great. The speakers were from a range of company sizes with good knowledge and I got to meet Alison Darcy, the founder of Woebot!

I took an easy joy around Tymon for parkrun this weekend as I was feeling under the weather. It is nice enough: two laps and a gentle slope but no serious hills. The park does run right next to the M50, though, which does make it noisy. I had a lovely time, though, and was glad I got out of bed.

It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism is a book by Bernie Sanders. He sets out what is wrong with capitalism and what to do about it.

It’s a good but highly depressing read. Sanders sets out a lot of important problems in detail and he does offer some solutions (universal healthcare, trade unions, independent media, etc). But what there isn’t is a roadmap for how to get there. Still, if you get the audiobook, it is read by Bernie himself.

The Reindeer Run is an annual 3km run around campus. I was there so I think I’m in this photo somewhere.

I had mixed feelings about heading over to parkrun yesterday. I was out late (midnight) with the dad’s night out from Venla’s school and had been drinking (caffeine). So, my stomach was not feeling chipper Saturday morning. But I did want to try and run a quick parkrun so I put my fast shoes on.

When I got to the park, I did a warm-up lap. The paths were flooded and I tried to dodge around them but the grass was a marsh so I gave up on that plan. It was straight through them from then on. But ankle deep freezing cold water was not the start to my warm-up I imagined 😂.

It is a small parkrun and 14 of us lined up on the start line. The course takes in three laps of the park and each loop included 8-10 large puddles you had to run through. There was also a lot of mud on the corners so I had to take it easy there. I was in fourth on the first lap, but then the front runners went the wrong way and only the fifth runner knew which way to go, so it was the infamous peco incident all over again.

As well as the puddles and the mud, there was a massive headwind on the back half of the course. The wind was up to about 50 kph when I checked it after the run and it felt like it. It was so hard to keep going at any pace that I almost dropped down to a walk, and I was working at around 190 bpm at this point.

I crossed the finish line in 4th overall. This is an improvement on my previous overall best placement when I came 6th in a field of 79 at Fairview parkrun. I ran that in 22:32. Today, I managed:

23:21

That’s only about 20 seconds faster than I ran Father Collins parkrun despite pushing hard this week and using my super shoes, so that was disappointing.

There are lots of mitigating factors: I got there late and didn’t get a full warm-up, I had to slow down for the mud, the wind, I went the wrong way. With all of that gone, I would definitely be sub-23 and hopefully that will improve now I’ve added more structure into my training.

A big thank you to all of the volunteers who showed up despite the grim conditions.