Chris Worfolk's Blog

The other thing that has kept my blog relatively quiet over January is that Elina had surgery. It was a success but recovery hasn’t been as smooth as we hoped so it has been a busy time caring for both Elina and Venla and still attend to work, studying and my own wellbeing.

I’m delighted to have her back home with us. She is the centre of my world and I love her so much.

Her health insurance covered her to recover on a private ward. Check out how nice it is:

This is a good place to recover. It’s quiet enough that you can get some rest. Food comes with vegetables. And staff don’t tell you off if you have a panic attack. Everyone deserves this level of care.

This month, I’ve been doing a daily video on Chris Is Proud Of You. Each video is a short/reel/tiktok that reminds you that you’re great and should be proud of yourself.

It’s been fun but challenging. I originally thought it would be relatively easily to short a portrait video each day. I could shoot it on my phone and upload it directly from there. But the time it took to write something meaningful to day, get the sound right, get the lighting right, do even minor edits, encode and upload turned out to be a lot of time.

The videos were well received and I was pleased to provide some additional content for my students. But nothing went viral. I clocked up around 17,000 views on TikTok and 3,000 on Instagram, which is tiny numbers in the grand scheme of things. YouTube numbers aren’t in yet as the videos are still being published there. All in all, it has been a fun month but also a relief to take a breather.

I’ve been using Adobe Premiere Rush this month as a video editing app for my phone. I tried a few different ones out and decided to go with this one as I have an Adobe Creative Suite subscription, so I got access to any premium features it has without additional costs. And it does what it needs to do.

It’s easy enough to use. You start by importing video files and then you can slice them up and apply colour effects. It also has graphics and audio tools but I haven’t really used those. Mostly I’ve just been cutting the start and end off and then altering the shadows and highlights.

Once you’re happy with it you can encode the video and then you get options to upload to a variety of different platforms such as Instagram and TikTok and it opens these apps for you with th video ready to go. It is video editing so you need plenty of storage space and some patience while the videos are encoding if you are shooting in 4K.

Since November I’ve been losing weight, mostly successfully, and getting back into longer runs. It has given me a chance to explore a bit further afield and while I still end up often doing laps of the park, I am at least lapping a different park now. So far, I’ve been feeling good, which has surprised me a little, so that has been lovely.

One of the main reasons there is nothing on my blog this month is that I have my head burried in writing a research paper. Even though I’m not at the writing stage yet. The paper is on mental health in ultra-endurance athletes and I’m currently on the data analysis stage. Watch this space. But not too closely because it’s a slow process.

We recently went for an allergy test and to get it done quicker we paid to get it done in one of the private hospitals. I don’t think I’ve been in one before and it is so fancy. There are fountains and artwork everywhere.

And there is a food court with multiple options that all looked attractive.

Of course, the main thing is the healthcare and that was a mixed bag. We were seen on time and staff were friendly. But they didn’t tell us that we were supposed to bring our own avocado if we wanted testing for that, so they couldn’t run all of the tests.

First masters race, running alongside my teammates from Blackrock AC.

Family hike up Three Rock.

Venla building a snowman.

Trip to Westport.

Around The Park, Around The Clock.

Riitta and Pauli visiting.

Trip to Bunratty Castle.

Trip to Belfast.

Gran’s birthday garden party.

Trip to Shannon.

DUCC swim session.

EcoTrail Wicklow.

Dublin Marathon.

Kim’s wedding.

Trip to Galway.

DUCC mini triathlon.

Iveagh Sports Ground junior parkrun.

I’m old. How old? In January I ran my first masters race. Masters is a running category for those over 35. With age comes infirmity and I was ill for quite a lot of the month. But I did attend Mark Knopfer’s guitar auction and Running For Beginners reached 100,000 members.

The San Francisco 49ers were back at the Super Bowl in February. Even though they lost it was an excellent game. I ran at the Dublin Universities colours xc race and did not come last. We managed to fit in a family hike up Three Rock. Unfortunately, my ankle was causing me problems so that was the last run for a while.

There was snow in March. Despite not being able to run, I got plenty of parkrun tourism in, walking Poppintree, Tolka Valley and Malahide. We celebrated Elina’s birthday and St Patrick’s Day. Jasmin Paris became the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathons. Vaughan Gething became First Minister of Wales, making it the first time all four home nations leaders were women or persons of colour.

I launched my strength and conditioning course on on Udemy in April and set my parkrun walking pb at Royal Canal parkrun, finishing in 33:38. We took a trip to Westport where unfortunately I was a DNF at Westport marathon. I did some more parkrun tourism at River Valley and Donabate. Sean Conway came to town and Triathlon For Beginners reached 100,000 members.

I celebrated my 350th parkrun in May. I also completed the Blackrock 5k, Sandyford 5k, and the fourth edition of Around The Park, Around The Clock. We visited Ardgillan Castle for some more parkrun tourism. Jonas Deichmann started his attempt to complete 120 full distance triathlons in 120 days. Tadej Poga?ar dominated the Giro, Leeds lost another play-off final and British were relegated at the ice hockey world championships. Switzerland lost in the final but made up for it by winning Eurovision.

After three months of the bike shop trying to fix my bike, I finally got it back in June. I did more parkrun tourism at Russborough, Carlow, Kilkenny and Vicarstown. The latter earned me my 50th different event. I also ran the Thoroughbred 10k. We visited the national reptile zoo and, more importantly, the Chocolate Garden just in time for Father’s Day. I launched my Emotion-Focused Therapy course. We said goodbye to Michael Mosley and hello to the new Anxiety Leeds portal.

I tried to make the most of having my bike back in July and we were delighted to host Elina’s mum and Pauli. I also started a movement streak to see how it would impact my mental health. We visited Belfast and took in the zoo, Ulster Folk Museum and Queen’s parkrun. I also took a trip to Oldbridge parkrun. England’s men’s team made it to another final at Euro 2024 and Mark Cavendish broke the all time record for most stage wins at the Tour de France. Julian Assange was freed.

Venla and I made the most of the summer holidays in August, visiting the funfair and the Explorium. We also took trips to Flamingo Land, Bolton Abbey and Bunratty Castle. We celebrated Gran’s birthday with a garden party. I took part in the Cycle Against Suicide sportive and did some parkrun tourism at Thorp Perrow and Illaunmanagh, completing the namely challenge. The other half of the month was a blur of watching the Oympics.

We relaunched DUCC in September and watched even more sport with the Paralympics. I launched my Occupational Psychology course and reached 100,000 students on Udemy. Jonas Deichmann successfully completed Challenge 120.

Despite a long of illness in September I managed to stumble around the 10k at EcoTrail Wicklow and completed one of the most challenging races in my life at Dublin marathon. There was lots more to celebrate with our wedding anniversary, Venla’s birthday, my birthday, Halloween and Kim’s wedding. We finally found the club bikes and got some autumn cycling done.

We visited Galway in November and yes, there was a parkrun. I ticked off University of Galway as well as Edwin Carolan Community earlier in the month. UoG allowed me to tick off the spell “parkrun” challenge. It was a busy month for DUCC, too, with our first track day of the year and hosting a mini triathlon.

Finally, in December, we kept active with hiking and parkrun tourism, as well as celebrating the launch of a new junior parkrun event. All of that added up to me completing the parkrun obsessive achievement by doing 50 parkruns in the same year. We also finished the triathlon year with a swim video analysis session. Then we did Christmassy things including meeting Santa, Venla’s winter concert, baking and plenty of time with family and friends.

I have a new social media project where I’m posting regular videos to remind you that you are enough just as you are. Chris Is Proud Of You.

Last week I was thrilled to complete the parkrun obsessive challenge. Which is the achievement you get for completing 50 parkruns in a year.

It’s a tough ask, although New Year’s Day and Christmas Day mean you can miss up to four Saturdays if you complete those. I made it to 45 in 2018 and 2019 and then 46 last year. But around September I realised I had only missed two so far and if I could be consistent, I could get to 50.

That made for some nervous times with multiple storms, including Storm Darragh cancelling 16 of the 20 parkruns near me including all of my locals. But I made it! In fact, I managed to end the year on 52. parkrun has been such an important anchor over the last 18 months and I’m looking forward to plenty more in 2025.