fetcheveryone

Jealous about the sunshine! Have a lovely time.

Dare you to try aerial yoga! It was a hoot when I had a go last year!

I've just come back - wore my Fetch anniversary t-shirt as I rolled over and off the ball in Fitball! Have a lovely free time - it's the cost that stops me going back more often!

Have fun

Looking forward to reading (and watching) all about it. Have a wonderful time.

Lucky pair! Have an (objectively) awesome time

Have a fab time!

What was the problem?

Ooh, this is a good co-incidence as I've just been given birthday money specifically to spend on a trip at Club La Santa! If you can find out what sort of swimming options they offer I'd be really interested in what you find out.
Have a lovely time

Sounds excellent! Have a great time.

Do they cater for teenagers at all? I could look up their website but seeing as you're there....

*Ahem* I should have read your blogs from 2 years ago before posting....soz.

My fifteen year old daughter loves it, AtC. All those fit Danish instructors, the sunbeds by the leisure pool, fantastic icecreams in the pool bar..... She even went on a run and went to the more girly classes - Feminine Fitness sounded soft but was based on ballet and pilates and I found it really really hard! Daughter does 7 hours of ballet a week so it was a doddle for her!! Oh and she went to a Bodybike class which was a first for her and she loved it.

Bloody hell, that's loads!

That's great news! Plenty for new shoes and cake

That's brilliant. We switched to them about 10 yrs ago and haven't looked back. We also have our contents with them. Recently I had to make a claim it was all sorted within 24 hrs

£92 per month? That's a few more nights out on the tiles for you two then

fetchies know *everything*, it's official

An excellent outcome. Well done Fetchies.

That really is amazing!

Superb result

Great result! *notes NFU for future reference, once the current insurers have paid for our drains repairs*

I have used NFU insurance (but for a horse rather than a house) and when I needed to claim they were brilliant.

Fetchies rule. Cor imagine what we could do if we were in the House of Commons

Great news!:)

Makes note to have a chat with NFU when the time comes

Always heard good things about NFU, am going to try them next year

Amazing

National Farmers Union?

Excellent!

Do you need to be a farmer?

My missus does all the money stuff. My contribution is now: 'can you look at NFU? Ta.'

Watford Wobble deals with the house insurance

Glad you got it sorted.

£92 a month? That's loads of new running stuff

coming to a tv near you - FETCH CONSUMER NEWS! (funnier than watchdog!!)

Brilliant Ian!!

Think NFU are just about to get loads of new customers!!

It's not what you know...:-)

Oh good! Glad you got such a good deal

I'm assuming you've done all the usual searches using go compare, money supermarket, direct line etc? Or is that impossible because of the physio at home thing?

I've done Money Supermarket - but lots of the insurers come back as 'no quote' for that reason.

Have you tried Hiscox or the NFU? I regard them as the most serious players in the market.

No advice, but my daughter lives by a canal, do canals flood, her insurance shot up by £400 this year alone

Have you actually phoned and spoke to someone? My parents had a similar problem when they tried to renew their home insurance. The online form were asked if they lived within 2 miles of a river to which they answered yes. Their insurance premium then went sky high. However, when my dad spoke to someone and explained that whilst they did live within 2 miles of a river they were on the top of a hill and if they flooded 85% of the south east of England would be under water! They then got a sensible quotation.

Second vote for NFU

We live by a canal and they have been fantastic.

Thanks, Lorraine and Glenn, we'll try them. westmoors, yes, I called them and they were hopeless. :-/ I'm also trying the company that my professional body recommend in the hope they'll be more sensible.

I second Hiscox. Different reasons in my case (listed building) but they covered (and at good price) when others wouldn't.

Hiscox again. Most of the "big" companies are so automated that your location will automatically flag as a flood risk (computer says no....) and you're unlikely to be able to talk to someone with any expertise or discretion. That's where a specialist like Hiscox, or a broker will earn their keep.

Biba.org.uk will allow you to search for a specialist broker who can assist with coverage within a flood zone. But I'm sure there's a Fetch insurance broker....

Try looking on the Environment Agency website. They have flood maps available on line that will tell you whether or not you are in a flood zone. If you contact them directly you should be able to get a flood report for your property, although there may be a charge for the report. If you can prove you are not in a flood zone or you are in a low risk area it should help you to reduce your premium.

I hope it helps.

I am moving to live next to a canal... the insurance company don't give a fuck. However a river is not controlled by man.

A timely blog. We're moving to share the same flood risk as you, but in a darker blue...

Try Aviva - (I'll declare an interest, although I don't work in their Home/General Insurance side) - they have (accurate) flood mapping software & statistical modelling directly connected to the quotation engine. If you're getting a quote from there it'll be based on latest "official" probability. If you don't like the premium, try a few other things (will work with most insurers) - Do you have other products with them? Ask for multi product discount (it may come off the "other" rather than your home insurance, but the net result is the same). Or if you've got evidence on non-flooding during times other properties did, try asking if you can go through "manual" underwriting rather than the automated solution.
There's also a Governent/DoE/ABI scheme called Flood Re being set up - abi.org.uk - you might get some help there, but I don't think it's quite landed yet.

Ooh, Argie's getting a bargie! ??

I just want to be able to tidy up posts that look scruffy - typos and that. But I agree with you, I'm broadly against an edit function because I can see ways in which that could make entire threads look scruffy.

I voted for 1) then realised it really ISN'T that important. I wonder if, when it comes down to it, others will have a similar realisation - because I trust in the soundness of your opinion - ie you don't like it. Incidentally - as I remember it - the RW version only let you edit within an hour or so. Which always seemed fair enough.

I'd only see a use for correcting spelling errors and similar. Having said that, some of the funniest posts are where autocorrect has taken over - I'd hate to lose those chances of humour! Overall, I'd leave it as it is.

Please don't.

Like Sharkie said, on TripAdvisor I think you get about five minutes, to correct the things that make you go "Doh!" once you see it posted. Not in favour of an edit that lets you go back and edit the stuff that may have been replied to. If you want to say something different, post again.

Erm, I don't want it - it could be misused and would put an end to me ever posting "I agree with X". Just in case.
I would trade the embarrassment of my typos for knowing that nobody else can ever make me look like I agreed with something outrageous.

I deffo don't want to edit my posts. You can already make blog commenters look like nutters by editing your blog, I really don't think this should exist as a forum-wide ability

I only want it for typo's - they embarrass me and make me feel that other people think I'm stupid, which I think says more about me than anything useful

I thought it would be a good idea to be able to edit, but now I'm not that bothered.

I think spelling errors, etc make the forums more interesting and it would be a shame to sanitise it in that respect. As an alternative, could you have a check spelling option before people press submit instead?

I appear to be the only one that wants a "Sorry I was having a brain fart moment when I wrote that" button. I do agree it would all get quite difficult to manage (and would you have to keep the original of a deleted post just so you could check whether it really was as libellous as people made out?) Best keep it as it is.

I thought of another, the 5k race category gets a bit swamped by parkruns, is it possible to separate out parkruns

WS - do you mean in the Race Finder? You can exclude parkrun under 'Event Type'.

We need to be able to edit so we can sort grammar, spelling, capitalistation in other people's posts. If you are even slightly autistic about these things, then badly written posts cause anxiety in the viewer. WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO EDIT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS! Or just ban them from the site, whatever is easiest.

I'd like to edit the typo in my last comment too. Thank you.

just lol...

Don't do it. It will only lead to trouble and issues that will stress you out. Leave it as it is.

That pretty much makes my mind up. Lol

Thank you everybody

I'm late to the party, but I agree. The messiness of fetch is part of its charm in a way, and even though I am a spelling Nazi the ridiculous stuff my phone types for me sometimes is a source of much thread merriment

I agree with Jambomo, other forums I use all allow editing without any problems, so I don't see how it will be abused (as long as it's identified that the post has been edited, as per my suggestion to your previous blog)?

I want a delete double post option, that seems to happen a lot esp when posting from your phone

I don't see the need for it and feel it could cause more problems than it solves. A double post is not the end of the world, if you make a spelling mistake, an autocorrect entry or grammar error, post again and get it right second time. If you post something you regret, post again and retract it and say sorry.

defo NO Quote function - its so bloody annoying when people quote back what you said 3 pages back and you can't remember what you said.

I think Fetch is quite easy flowing and should remain so - I mean, you can't rewind rewind or auto correct real lif can you? (or can you ;-))

it gets confusing enough on forums with flouncing never mind with editing, or editing-flouncing-rejoining-arguing with your original edited self!

I think the threads work fine the way they are. I can imagine an editing facility being dreadfully misused by kitchen sales people trying to retract their tempting offers.

I like the option to edit; not because I want to retract anything but because I hate sepelling mistakees

Oh, and quote is good. Not that I read many other posts before posting a load of random tripe

I'd like it because typos annoy me, but in order for it to work you need q quoting feature too . That keeps folks.honest and is useful in itself too

Not bothered about editing and a big No for a quote function

No to thread edits, and No to quoting posts. Yes, they exist on other forums and that's part of the reason I use Fetch and not those places! Give me double posts, spelling mistakes, autocorrect embarrassments any day...

Oh yeah, I hate quotes too. Takes up oodles of space and you're like 'WTF? Who cares what someone said 3 pages ago?'

Not being able to edit annoyed the hell out of me when I joined the forum but now I find it an amusing in interesting quirk of this forum and I quite like it. You can always do an 'oops' post to explain a mistake.

Upon further reflection, I think the appropriate saying is "you're never going to please all the people all of the time". It's fantastic that you asked us all in your previous blog for suggestions on how we'd like to see the site improved, but as Sharkie said in the second comment on this blog, it's your site and we "trust in the soundness of your opinion". If we look back at the past, whenever you change anything on the site a high proportion of the initial comments are quite often negative but we all learn to love your changes.

After thinking about this I am fine with no edits, although it might be nice to allow title editing for threads so you can make the title more up to date if it gets revived after a long period

That poll doesn't give an option for "keep it the way it is"! One of the fun things is accidental posts and not being able to correct them. Makes for more careful posting?! It's part of the culture and what makes Fetch fun. Whatevs! G

Favourite feature? Blimey! The training log with all the geeky stats at the touch of a button, definitely. But then there are the blogs, and the threads, and the Advent competition, and the support points at races, and the fabulous nutters off t'internet that I've met in real life, and and and and and ...
What could be improved? I'd like to be able to edit my posts. But I don't want anyone else to be able to edit their posts

I 'd like to just copy V'Raps comments because I totally agree with her

In order, training log, blogs, threads, games (we'll need a new one soon or at least a "most collected" section in the sticker book). Another Icon comp please.

Training log is the best bit hands down. To improve, maybe training aids/educational blogs. There are lots of forums/chatrooms etc. There may be a catalogue of useful stuff but it remains undiscovered by me.

It's all very good but if I was to be critical I like slightly more polish around presentation of the stats like Garmin or strava do. Editing/ deleting posts would be nice as well.

I'd like to be able to add a name to each training session. (e.g. "8x400m reps" )

wowsers.... if that's the best I can come up with, then you're obviously doing a good job!!

Your race finder is brilliant. You should definitely plug it a lot more, people are always asking about race finders and the fetch one includes every tiny race with more than 2 runners and a dog.
I quite like the idea about naming workouts too, a la Strava. Then we could have a #fetchwankers hashtag

Love the site, spend FAR too much time on it... I would like my multisport efforts off me garmin to be logged as a bit of each sport and a transition rather than all one thing... Sent you feedback on that one already Er. Fetch Buffs or wristbands. Er. Nope, either I'm lacking imagination or it's pretty good already!

Editing posts please; and ... ummm...that's all I can think of (Oh btw, has FB approved your knots as being suitable for connecting training entries on Fetch to my FB page yet?)

Favourite is the training log.

If I have to pick one it's the training log. but I also love the forums and the blogs. don't use the games so much.

oh yes and I love the race finder and being able to put them and my best times in my race portfolio

Best bit - training logs, with all the graphs etc that come out of them
Improvements :-

a) load elevation data automatically, without having to do a glasses view of the workout
b) edit forum posts
c) ability to quote part/all of an earlier post in a thread so people know what you're talking about

I have to choose Training logs and associated geekery, then.

Improvement: at the start I used to like stalking, er gaining inspiration and entertainment from, other people's notes in the "whose been training". Now it's nearly all just "split times: etc". No fun. Some kind of "edit before save" option?

Ditto V'rap for me too....

Where do I start I love the training log its just brilliant and I love the forum and the blogs and the race diary. Love to be able to edit posts (sorry Vrap ) I like the search function but sometimes you want to search the blogs you can't do that atm

I'm sure theres more I may be back

I like the race finder and Fleecy's swearing. Is Fleecy's swearing a feature of Fetch?

can we ue the search facility for Fleecy's swearing

I like the training log, Fetchpoint and Conquercise. My Suunto uploads to Movescount and from that to strava and it would be good if data could be sent automatically here too.

Training log and the training plan diary brings happiness into my life. I use the bespoke field to log my type of interval work so would love to be able to filter by that (though I shall no go check 2c if I already can). Auto route pickup would be handy ie you ve run this route x times here are the runs, oh you're getting slower with old age.

Threads and blogs for me.

It's all just bloody marvellous. The only improvement I can think of is an fmail issue: it would be useful to auto fill send-to name as I can never remember exactly how people spell themselves (and some Fetchies change their names with dizzying frequency *stares hard at Fleecy*), and it would to be able to send to more than one recipient at once. Um, that's it.

Training log is favourite.
I think the articles/wiki bit (not the current ones the old stuff) either needs some tlc or knocking on the head. But not sure which.

race finder and training log is best.
My improvement would be to be able to link all the previous years races of the same event (if it has the same name it does this automatically)

Best = race finder, race portfolio & photos.
Could do better = polar HR data populated in training log & auto feed training from polar site.

Sorry, Iron Mum

I'd say the best feature is the training log but the best thing about Fetch is the community - whether that is threads or blogs or polls or fmail or just the socialmedianess of it is difficult to define.

All of it is fab would love a *sock* though

My favourites are, in no particular order, the training log, the training plan, the route planner, and the race finder.
I'd like to see the route planner have the conquersize grid overlayed (not necessarily your owned/visited zones) for more efficient zone collecting route planning. Thank you please.

Favourite bits? Love the forums, but I'd like to sometimes see more than 10 posts per page - perhaps 25? I'd like to be able to edit too - but not that fussed. I also love the icons (obviously, since I curate the icon gallery in the thread) and would dearly love to boost the iconocount to 64 very soon as this has been the longest period without a new one!

More things to hunt on Fetchpoint please. Otherwise, what they ^^^^ said.

Another request for more posts per page (could it be user defined within a certain range) I'd prefer 100.

Training log is what I keep coming back for, but then when I'm here there is so much else.

Wonderful site as it is, however I would like to be able to import data from my TomTom Run thingy.

Very, very happy - most of my real life social life started on Fetch
A few little things - the ability to edit training before it automatically posts to Facebook, edit posts and erm, that's about it

love an icon

Training log and race finder. Obviously. I like idea of naming a training session. Really good idea (I think) is link a blog to a route (like we can do a race.) Some folk like to describe where they run, this will encourage that. And more than one photo per route?

Training log - I know exactly how many hours/mins I've run/swum/biked on any day in the last 8 years or so - fantastic !!
Beats Garmin Connect, strava all other training logging apps and websites I've ever looked at

I am new back to fetch training logs l keep coming back to and the race finder the community on fetch thats all at moment

Improvements: edit / delete posts would be great; to be able to find posts by a user also helpful; I don't get that Checkpoints game thing (is it supposed to be like strava segments?)

The best bits: conquercise and Fetchpoint games are genius; but....the training log is the outstanding feature of this site. You're doing an awful lot right Fetch, keep it up (I've been here for 7 years after all!)

Wish list:
Load elevation data automatically, especially for devices with altimeters
Edit tracks to correct rogue GPS coords
I would say a sexier, rounder look and feel, but that probably needs more of a designer than a coder
Expose the fetchpoint data via the API as I have a nice little idea for a smartphone app

Love the training log but charts and graphs for each run have gone back to including stopped time since the change to the way the garmin loads from garmin connect.

As many others have said, it's a fantastic site with many more good bits than those that need improving That said (and again I think I'm mostly repeating what others have said) my wish list would include:-
- load elevation data automatically
- edit forum posts (and include a "Edited at 21:12 01/01/15" stamp to identify an edit, but not delete the whole post)
- ability to quote part/all of a post (great idea Gus!)
- hide individual threads (I know you can hide Tabs but there's some great "Friday" threads and some not so great ones that fill the front page of the forum)

Allow each training entry to record the type of run and intensity. i.e.: by using the same information in the drop down list from the training category field (red box on the exercise data page) as two separate data fields. This will allow a breakdown such as “long-run & steady state” or “medium long run & tempo” or “mumbling & easy”.

Logs, Blogs, Forums (esp that forums are all so very varied - not "just" running!)

Forum post edit feature (has anyone said that one yet ? )

Training log for me, despite not doing much training this year so far:)

Can I have another on my wishlist please - agree with AJPAR above, that I don't like that the pace graph of a run is skewed if you stop then re-start your watch at some point, ie the graphs ( and your generated splits ) are going on total elapsed time, rather than active time. If I wanted total elapsed time to show, I wouldn't stop my watch

Training log for, although since the Garmin Connect auto-connectivity thing has some along less so... as the times now always need adjusting and the pace graph is wrong if you pause the Garmin mid-run.

When you add a route, have the drop down box so that you can save it in the relevant category. It would be nice to be able to cut and paste bits of routes together or somehow be able to edit them without having to undo all the later clicks, but i expect i'm asking too much there.
What is great? The ambiance, training log, forum and in particular you.

Thinking about it again I'd like to see better information on height gained/lost. Both because it requires a click through to register at all and because (as touched on & explained to me a while ago on some thread or other) the sample rate is fixed per activity rather than per hour or mile so if I ride my bike 100 miles on gently rolling hills it misses much of it & radically under records.

best bit:training log. Improve: my ideal is that fetch will magically track my training as I do it and upload it all so I don;t need to plug in my garmin and transfer, so kind of like a strava with fetch combined. And that whenever I log training as race it automatically knows and updates my race portfoilio at the same time. oh, and the moon on a stick please.

Ruth, if you have one of the newer Garmins, a smartphone and Garmin Connect, you can do just that!! Fetch does recognise it.

How about route merge thing? Work out which of our routes are (mostly) the same and combine/group them under a common route with past performance. Sounds a bit Strava-ish but I have never used it. Then maybe extend to super-routes which would be like super-hospitals but more popular (parkruns would be common super-routes).

Still finding my feet, but all of it is great. Especially the race finder and portfolio. Would be cool to be able to link races logged with entries in the portfolio. Also maybe a temporary forum post edit (?until a reply has been posted) to fix glaring face-palm mistakes!

I love the training log and forums, would like conquercise to be a bit easier to use. (have already had a response to my feedback!) but want to see how many runs I need in certain zones to claim it, or warnings that someone is close to stealing a zone. Map - can you get OSM option rather than just satellite or map view, which again would be really handy for conquercise and fetchpoint.

20:1 - not great odds!
But very interesting, thank you!

Yikes.

There are other marathons out there folks, just check out this website:
100marathonclub.org.uk

Yep - or use the Fetch race listings - we had 486 marathons listed worldwide last year - plenty to choose from: http://www.fetcheveryone.com/races-map.php

Heart breaking news. Don't fancy my chances. Good to see such a high volume of interest though.

Most runners could increase their chances by joining a club. Many (most?) running clubs have 1 or 2 entries and often ballot their own runners where the odds of success are much better than 1 in 20

That's a good point OaS. And some clubs will put extra tickets in the hat in exchange for marshalling duties etc.

There are also loads of competitions on twitter/facebook in the run up (sorry for the crap pun) to the event. It's well worth looking at the sponsors listed on the London Marathon site, and watching out for competitions. I know of a few runners who won entries through social media.

Maybe other events could be boosted if London had some kind of bare minimum qualifying standard: say having run a 6:30 marathon or 3 hour half. That could give quite a lot of races an entry boost of sometimes a few hundred and keep the completely unprepared out of the ballot.

Sorry I disagree Dvorak, the reason I ran London as my first (on a charity place) was because it was a big event with no cutoff and I felt included, and knew I wouldn't be last. I wouldn't have run another event to be able to get in to London. However, smaller events will likely feel the boost from people like me later, as they look for subsequent events.

Thanks for depressing me! I think I will see if I can persuade the old man to go to Dublin in the October half term (for me not normal schools!)

i don't know why they don't just do a spring and autumn London marathon , or perhaps it would devalue it ?

It's interesting that so many of the applicants are first timers. Maybe once you've done a marathon London doesn't seem so inviting? I know lots of people find it crowded. Oh well, I didn't really want to run it in 2016 anyway

I think its impressive that 111,000 of the applicants have already run at least one marathon. Do we know what percentage of applicants are from the UK versus overseas?

I do think, that of you are GFA, and you run london, you are then not allowed to run it for 3,4,5 years. I suppose you could argue it would dilute it as a "race", but it isnot a race really, it's an ope event. I also think there is a mindset difference from running a "marathon", to running the "London marathon".

I wonder how many paid their entry money up front to be entered in to the run-off ballot for 1000 places? If 100,000 paid then that's £4milion. Easy money.

Do the stats say where the entrants come from? My preference for limiting numbers would be to give Londoners priority: it's a great opportunity to bring the City together and closer to the ideals of the original New York marathon. If people from other places also had priority for their own local event, it would keep running closer to the community

I am sure I will get rejected again this year. I only want to run London because my dad did the very first one and I would just love to follow in his footsteps. I plan on that being my last marathon as I find the training really hard and time consuming. Takes over my life and is not my only hobby.

I'm just surprised there weren't more entrants. Still will be hard

London is a fabalous event, but there are many great marathons around, each one special for their own reasons. If you do miss out on London (been there) then look at another one Halstead, Snowdonia etc

Training log and race finder. Obviously. I like idea of naming a training session. Really good idea (I think) is link a blog to a route (like we can do a race.) Some folk like to describe where they run, this will encourage that. And more than one photo per route?

Doh. wrong blog.

Too Early, EarlyRiser?

See my blog of 16th April. You copycat!

really interesting stuff, I hope your mouth eases soon

Sounds interesting Dont live on banana milkshakes whatever you do, Mr fleecy had nothing but those for 2 weeks when he had all his wisdom teeth extracted, and he lost 2 stone and developed a lifelong hatred of bananas!

Blimey sounds awesome. Wouldn't mind having a bash in that.

Did you have the Police song playing while you played on it?

Sounds cool - and I suspect looks silly! Hope the toof thairy brings you enough to buy one to carry on playing....

Is it any good for hanging clothes on?

Sounds like a lot of fun! It would look great in the garage but would probably end up being an expensive dust collector!

We had this discussion on the parkrun thread a while back and someone did some ascent and descent stats. I think it was one in Scotland but I'm sure someone with a better memory will be along later with more detail.

And at the other end - try York for a control - pancake flat!

Hilly Fields is not misnamed

Wimpole Estate has one short, sharp climb and one longer more insidious one.

Are you manually inputting or is it automatic (pulling data from the API, is that what tech-types say?)?

Another vote for Wimpole, of the 3 near Cambridge it is the hilliest and a bit tussocky under foot.

Queen Elizabeth is one of the toughest.

Darley parkrun in Derby has a hill that you go up twice....it costs me about 1 minute on my time!

Banstead has a killer hill that you have to do twice, but then you do get the benefit of twice coming down the other side.

Reigate is quite undulating but the worst bit is coming back downhill along the *edge* of the camber so you need a longer right leg than left!

Tilgate has one killer hill at just before halfway that if you take it too fast wipes you out for the rest of the run.

I wonder if DebbieAB is referring to Killerton which does have a bee-atch hill or two. But it also has nice cows and sheeps so I didn't notice.

Leeds Hyde Park is surprisingly hard because although it's not the worst hill I've done, you do have to do it three times.

I've done 31 different ones, my vote is for Lanhydrock in Cornwall or Cuerden valley in Lancashire. I've also done Wimpole and Killerton would say the above two are meaner

Ashton Court has a 2.5km climb then 2.5km descent. It is probably the course with the greatest overall uphill but is overall a pretty fast one.

cuerden and Lyme park are far tougher than Wimpole, Leamington, etc. I'd have thought the former has more ascent/descent but is still faster for most road runners than Lyme Park as that is more like a mini fell race.

Camperdown. There is bugger all down.

Hackworth, very twisty turny, canny hill all of which you do multiple times. Gateshead is pretty tough too.

Agree with Flanker that Lyme Park is tough as it is a mini fell race where descents can be slow and the persistent climbs at Cuerden make it slow. I would also add Watergrove above Rochdale as being tough too - it is slower than my times at either Lyme Park and Cuerden.

Recently did Halifax as parkrun tourists and husbeast and I think its 3 laps have some challenging hillwork in them!

Only done three and they increase in toughness from Chelmsford to St Andrews to Larne. There's a possible link to scenic beauty in the same order.

Sheringham Park out and back course has two very sharp climbs. The second is just before the finish. Run Britain rankings gives a score of either 4.9 or 5. An 80 year old told me off for walking up one of them!

Also there'll be a difference between tarmac courses and muddy off-road courses like Wimpole especially in winter

In the south there's Clare parkrun that has a killer hill and it's a three lapper, also Lloyd parkrun in Croydon is very hilly and it's all off road. Take your cross country spikes if you go in the winter.

not sure if this sort of data is only obtainable via the parkrun people, but would the slowest of the fastest times of all parkruns not indicate the toughest course?

Try Pomphrey Hill in Bristol - steep bark chipped incline and a longer but less steep tarmac climb to the finish line, all done three times!

Gibside Parkrun run up to the gods then back down..hardwork for a plodder likeme

Lanhydrock is my vote, but I think the Plym Valley parkrun has even slower times than Lanhydrock, and Penrose parkrun does some of the AnResek course which is also tough.

Looking forward to some stats on these, and hoping the Cornish and Plymouth ones appear near the top as I suspect they might :-).

Isn't it just a classic normal distribution, but plotted cumulatively, so it ends up sigmoidal? I doubt the shape will change unless something is so strange as to change it away from a normal distribution ... but harder courses will shift the sigmoid to the right as their mean time is slower, easier ones to the left ... and I expect the standard deviation will be greater for hard courses, as faster runners can cope better than the slower ones, so the slope of the sigmoid will flatten.

Great Notley PR near Braintree has a tough hill half way round. Reckon I lose about a minute their compared to my usual PR at Chelmsford which is fairly flat.

Enjoy the feed, HB KB

my dentist is a fetchie

I have a similar attitude to the dentist as you, and have never got on with flossing

I got put off flossing a while back, when it didn't go well - but I've got the hang of it now.

Love the flags!

Flossing is far more fun when you have (dental!) implants. It's amazing how far up and round your gum the floss can go...... (Sorry, possibly TMI!)

Nice flags.

Thanks so much for the support at MK, the hi-five at the top of the hill was needed!

Happy birthday Katie xx
I only have one filling in a wisdom tooth too. Was 41 when I had to get that done, and was gutted.

The most important thing is did he win? My 3 play for a local club, they have the same kind of set up from the age of 2, all the way up to seniors.

You look like Samurai, Fetch swords next?

Those bluebells are amazing, as are the shoes! Sounds like your recovery is going well, I only did my first 2.5 miles today

My eyes, my eyes!!

Introducing people to running is about so much more than introducing them to running, isn't it? I remember taking our Newbies out to the bluebell wood about week 6 when they were capable of run/walking that far and back, most of them had never seen it before and it was like a whole new world opening up

I have heard many ridiculous things being shouted at small children, in a whole range of sports. I was pleased to see these signs at a local GAA club. facebook.com

facebook.com

facebook.com

The bluebells are fab here too

How do you get custom designed shoes like that? Did I miss that explanation somewhere down vvv there? By the way, vLogs are great, but you have to copy everything you say in them into a traditional written blog (full transcript with accompanying stage directions, mind) for those of us who read at work, but can't view. Thank you! G

Found three woods full of Bluebells around Stagsden last weekend. Some of the encouragement parents shout at their kids is horrendous. (What a great couple of signs HowFar? Think the third would go over most parents head though!!)

I know this probably isn't the most appropriate place, but is "something funny going on with notifications", as I've literally only just got a notification of this "new" blog you've written.

Me too Nelly. Just notified about the blog that I commented on 2 days ago! G

It was a test blog that I wrote then deleted.