Goal focus: 30 parkruns in 2023?

Extra navel-gazing time! 😁

A couple of weeks back, I threatened to make a calendar of my runs (and injuries, etc.) to see what reasons I had for not making it to parkruns. I've done that now; for 2023, at least:

I should've included a key really, but the second-last column is Saturday, with:

• orange parkrun logos for days I've made it to parkrun and ran
• black parkrun logos for days I've made it to parkrun and volunteered
• mixed orange-and-black parkrun logo for the time I volunteered as a guide-runner
• black with any other symbol for days I failed to make it to parkrun

Of that last category, these are the possible excuses:

• Injury: the knee icon (4 times this year)
• Family commitments: the parent and child icon (2 times this year)
• Holiday: the suitcase icon (1 time this year)
• Illness: the thermometer icon (1 time this year)

While there's not a great deal I can do about these things — life happens, after all 🤷‍♂️ — it's still interesting to see how I got off to a great start in January and then things have been very on-off ever since. February was practically a write-off. Would be lovely to get a string of orange Saturdays going again, getting my target of 30 parkruns for the year back on track; 9 parkruns in 4 months isn't cutting it right now (and would yield 27 for the year).

So, while I'm staring down the barrel of a failed target, maybe I just chose a bad target. I shouldn't feel bad if, for example, family life means I can't do 30 parkruns in a year. At least none of the excuses is "I couldn't be bothered that day". 🙂