Over the Christmas holidays, I was compelled (a visit was due anyway) to return to sunny South Africa for the first time in five years - my first Christmas back in SA in 7 years - by my cousin's desire to marry a gun-toting children's pastor (lovely chap).

As part of my holiday back home, I decided I'd venture out to see what South Africa's first and only (at the moment) parkrun was like. It'd been a very very very long time since I last ran in South Africa, let alone raced, and from the one other run I'd had in Jo'burg during my hols, a gentle 10k, I knew it would be a toughie.

So nice and early on Christmas eve, I bundled my wife into the car and we headed down to Delta Park for a quick spin round the park (me - my wife doesn't run). We got there with about half an hour to spare so I could warm up and introduce myself to the organiser - the one and only, Bruce Fordyce

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I've just received this weeks' Parkrun newsletter

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In January I drew up a few goals for the year regarding the 5K distance, namely sub 19-min around about 2 April and then a sub 18-min 5K by the end of the year. Well, I think I was a little over-ambitious with these goals. The 2 April deadline came and went without a run. Problems on the home front meant there was no way I was going to be running that weekend, so I delayed my attempt. In training I soon realised I wasn't like to get sub 19-min this early in the season either, so I settled for around about 19:30 for the start of the season and we'll see how I get on from there.

Well, last Saturday I kicked off my 2011 season in fine form. It was a gloriously sunny day and I headed down the road for the Reading Parkrun

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Headed out for my third Reading Parkrun on my own this morning. My wife hasn't been sleeping too well, so I left her in bed this morning whilst I went off on another of my barefoot adventures.

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For the second week in a row that crazy nutter was there at the Reading Parkrun running without any shoes. Don't believe me? Well check out the photos (more here):

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Check it out, some crazy nutter did the Reading Parkrun yesterday morning completely barefoot...

And that nutter was ME . Yes folks, I have now technically done my first race in over 10 years and I did it barefoot. I opted for a mostly grassy 5k and it was fantastic.

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