Chris Worfolk's Blog

Torvean parkrun is the local parkrun in Inverness. They typically get around 200 people. Then, one weekend per year, the Loch Ness Marathon and Festival of Running descends, and they get 600. Thank you to all of the volunteers for tolerating us!

The course is two and a half laps around the park. There is one hill, nicknamed “heartbreak hill” but it goes up maybe five metres, so I think it is more of an ironic name. Compared with say Sheffield Castle. It’s a scenic park with some trees and a pond. There is a coffee van at the end, too, but alas our pastries were a little stale.

I had the Hyde Park Harriers 20th anniversay relay band on for it, hence me waving my arm in the photo.

This week we ran another event for Leeds Autism Practice. This one was on parenting when you’re neurodivergent and was the second one I have co-presented. For this one, I was delighted to be joined by Dr Lucy who is a fabulous source of knowledge on all things neurodivergent and a wonderful co-presenter. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the event.

Bowling Park is located in Bradford and the parkrun consists of two and a half loops of the park, including doing the massive hill three times. It is a similar profile to Potternewton. Here’s a section of the hill:

Everyone was very friendly and there is a little cafe in the park. It’s been my NENDY for ages so good to get it ticked off.

My final triathlon of the Worfolk Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) 2026! I’ve done Sundowner several times before, including my first middle distance, but that was back in the Freebird days. The event is now organised by U Prevail and just as good.

There were four waves: fast mixed, fast women, slow mixed, slow women. I went in the third and found that I was pretty good in comparison to the others in my wave. I wasn’t first out of the water: there was a small pack and a few lone swimmers ahead, but I was ahead of most people and it felt great to have the confidence to go out and swim reasonably hard (for me). I came out around a minute faster than Bishopton.

The cycle also went well. I stayed down on my aero bars pretty much the entire time. Not quite as fast or as hard as at Brigg, but my back continued to work even after the race so I feel like the trade was worth it.

The run was a lot different from the old days: it took place entirely inside the grounds of Allerthorpe Lakeland Park and was mostly trail. One of the lovely things about having the middle and standard distance athletes on the course at the same time as I felt pro-level fast overtaking people who were doing four times the distance I was.

My total time was:

1:26:11

And here are my splits with a comparison to Bishopton:

I missed all of the official photos, unfortunately. In a very generous move, they gave out prizes to both the first and second place in each age category. Alas, I came third, but I wasn’t that close to moving up a space so oh well. It’s a lovely race for both beginners and seasoned veterans.

Nostell parkrun is set on the grounds of Nostell Priory. There is in fact no priory, but the stately house that now sits there was built where there used to be one. The National Trust kindly let parkrun use it for free. You just need to avoid all of the electric fences. It’s a two-lap affair with one moderate hill per lap.

Brigg, a market town in Lincolnshire with a population of 5,000 hosts two triathlons per year: and early season run by FastFwd, and an end-of-season race run by local club Lincsquad, which also includes a quadathlon option with paddling.

It is a small race which meant we almost all fitted into the regular leisure centre car park. The transition area was on the astro turf pitches with nice big secure walls so you could leave your bag there. It does mean we all came home covered in those little rubber black balls, though.

Thw swim was pool-based started in two-minute intervals. I was much faster than anyone else in my lane, but everyone who set off with me was about the same speed, so I think I gave an accurate time but given it was small race, it inevitably meant swimming with different abilities. The lanes were wide enough to make passes.

The cycle was a flat route. There were no hills at all that I remember though it did slightly creep up hill at 1-2% max. I decided to get down on my aero bars and see how far I could go. As it turned out, it was the whole cycle leg. This was a decision I would later regret after getting home and having a nap, only to realise my back had ceased up. But, at the time, I was flying. Averaging 31.8 kph from just 177 watts of power. I can’t remember the last time I had a bike split averaging over 30. I got up to 41.8 kph coming back.

The run involves a out-and-back section that involves several road crossings, but once past these, we got onto the canal and things became much more pleasant.

My overall time was:

01:12:07

Splits were given as swim+T1 of 12:10, cycle+T2 of 35:15 and run of 24:41. On my watch, my splits were:

Overall I was position 31 out of 69 and yet somehow 9th in my age category of Masters 40-49. I thought I had now escaped the category of death. A nice event and one I would happily do again. Thank you to Malcolm Dent for the photos.

The Forensic Records Society is a novel by Magnus Mills. Claude recommended Mills, specifically some of his other books, but they weren’t available as audiobooks so I gave this one a go. It around four hours of reading, it was time well spent.

The book tells the story of two friends who establish a society for listening to music. Rival societies then spring up and the novel examines group formation, normalisation of rules, and movements splinter in different directions.

Harrogate parkrun is three laps of The Stray, specifically the north east corner. I was going to a networking event after so I decided to walk it. But I got a little carried away and ended up going sub-38. It’s a mixture of grass, dirt with tree roots, and tarmac. Well organised and friendly volunteers.

The City & The City is a novel by China Miéville. It’s an alternative history wrapped up in a police procedural. As far as I can tell, it’s very clever. But I found it too hard to keep up with and gave up after the first two chapters.

Red Side Story is the second novel in Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey series and follows directly on from it. It’s a great sequel. Sometimes sequels are a bit slow moving, especially the second in a trilogy. But this one has some serious plot. And continues Fforde’s captivating ability to create such cool alternative histories. Well worth a read.