Gladstone parkrun

Please note there is a newer write-up available, here: Gladstone parkrun 2024 write-up

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For my visit to Gladstone parkrun I returned to my current favourite mode of transport - the bicycle! Although I'm not familiar with this area of London, the route from Westminster to Gladstone Park is fairly straight forward and involved using the cycle path through Hyde park and then joining Edgware Road (a nightmare of a road for cyclists) northbound before turning off just after Kilburn. If I had been in the mood for public transport I could easily have taken the Jubilee line to Willesden Green or Dollis Hill underground stations. If national rail is more your thing then you should alight at Cricklewood station.

At first I didn't spot any bicycle racks near the start area but there are a few fences, benches, lamposts and trees that you could use to secure a bike to. Quite a few people arrived by bike and there were a few clusters. It wasn't until I had already locked the bike up and was warming up that I noticed a nice long set of bike racks right next to the community centre/cafe building - the downside is the racks seem rather secluded so on balance I felt more secure with my original spot.

I specifically visited this venue on this date because it was their first birthday. While loitering around the start area I bumped into Vicky from Barking parkrun and the founder of parkrun - Paul Sinton-Hewitt. Before the run started the end-of-year presentations were made to runners and volunteers by the Mayor of Brent (not the mayor of London as some had been expecting!). The atmosphere was brilliant and I could feel a real sense of community.

Gladstone Park was previously the grounds of Dollis Hill House, and was purchased in 1900 in order to create a new public park. The park is named after former Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, who often spent time here as a guest of Lord Aberdeen.

The park is divided into two sections by a railway line, which at present is used only by freight trains. The area to the South of the railway line is mostly used as playing fields but also has a playground and community centre - which is also a cafe and has toilets, however it does not open until about 9.45am.

The south side is where you'll find the parkrun meeting point and start/finish area, and looking in the general direction that the run goes in you could easily be fooled into thinking that the course is pancake flat. Although the run starts and finishes here, the majority of the ground you will cover is in the northern section of the park which you reach via a humpback bridge across the railway line.

The northern section has been left in its 'original and natural beauty'. Here you will find the former site of Dollis Hill House (demolished in 2012 and replaced with a folly), tennis courts, some toilets (which were closed due to vandalism), a second playground, the car park (but for the purposes of the parkrun you'd probably use a side street closer to the meeting area), pleasure garden, duck pond, and a memorial to victims of concentration camps in the first and second world wars.

The course takes you on a roller-coaster ride along tree-lined avenues as you slowly work your way up to the highest point of the course where you can see Wembley stadium to the west, and apparently the London Eye and the Shard to the south (but I didn't spot them). The beginning of the second half of each lap gives you a brief opportunity to stretch your legs as the course gives back some of the hard work you have previously put in with a swooping downhill which levels out into a rare stretch of flat tarmac, then it takes it away again with another incline. In total I counted four ups and downs each lap - hence the roller-coaster feel.

Two laps later you are free to return to the other side of the tracks where you retrace your footsteps until you reach the finish. I accidentally got involved in a sprint finish with one of the junior runners - I haven't run at that speed for a very long time and it felt good to let go.

The northern section is almost completely run on tarmac paths - there is one 100 metre (or so) section of grass that you encounter twice. You also run on a section of grass during both stints in the southern section. Again I opted for my New Balance 1080v3 road shoes and they did the job nicely. The tarmac/grass split is about 90/10 in favour of the tarmac. The course is definitely buggy friendly, and on the day I ran somebody was running with a double running buggy (with two kids on-board) - impressive stuff!

Anyway, it was a birthday celebration and of course that means cake. There was a beast of a cake and during the run briefing runners were instructed to take two pieces each - one slice was enough for me. Looking at the results I see that a new attendance record of 151 was set at the event - it's always a pleasure to be involved in the setting of a new record. The residents of NW10 are extremely lucky to have such a beautiful park and a brilliant parkrun on their doorsteps.

• GPS data from 30 June 2013: Gladstone parkrun (see my 2024 write-up for updated course)

Grovelands parkrun

Please note: There is a newer write-up available for this venue - Grovelands parkrun 2024 blog.

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As I understand it, this how this parkrun was conceived.

Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club required a piece of land for their new training ground. Enfield Council had some that they could use but as a condition the football club would have to do something to promote health and fitness in the local community in return. I don't know anything about what happened in-between, but 9 months* later a bouncing baby parkrun was born - Its name is Grovelands.

I joined the runners of N14 on a damp, drizzly morning. I arrived way before any signs that parkrun exists here became apparent, so I wandered around to see what the park was like. The first thing I saw was a pitch and putt golf course, and quite a few dog walkers. There is a lake right in the heart of the park and walking around to the far side of it I found the children's playground, toilets and the closed cafe.

There is a mansion somewhere, but it is now part of a hospital and I didn't see it. I suspect it's behind some trees and probably a fence or wall. Passing the lake again I noticed a sign saying that a dangerous algae is present in the water so probably not a good idea to take a post-run dip. It's also supposedly home to a large number of terrapins.

This is another venue that feels like a flash mob. Up until 8:45am the only parkrunners I had identified were a lady that was doing her first ever parkrun and a man that was a first timer at this venue but usually parkruns near Exeter. Navigation around the course is simple enough but there were no signs or marshals during my run so definitely worth checking the course map before running here. Saying that, unless you're planning on leading the field you'll have plenty of runners to follow anyway.

The course is officially described as undulating/flat, but after reading this blog post a few days beforehand I knew that this description was playing things down slightly. There is a hill which probably fills about a quarter of each lap (I'm guessing about 400 metres or so), it's not the steepest or longest you'll encounter in the wonderful world of parkrun, but it does go up and if you don't manage your pace it could bite you on one of the later laps.

Talking about laps, there are almost three of them. I'm going to say it's about 2.9 laps run in an anti-clockwise direction. Looking at the course map I'd say it looks a bit like a tadpole. It's all on tarmac so no need to ever consider anything more than road shoes, I decided to take my New Balance 1080v3's on their first parkrun outing.

I traveled here by tube on the Piccadilly line to Southgate station. From here it's less than a ten minute walk to the park. If I had cycled (I really wanted to but I wasn't confident about successfully navigating my way through unfamiliar North London roads) I would have been able to lock my bike to the safety rail next to the lake, but I didn't spot any real bicycle racks.

Being an all-tarmac course it is definitely buggy friendly and I imagine it would be fine (assuming the incline isn't an issue) for any wheelchair athletes out there too.

Sadly this venue does not currently have a post-run social gathering in place. The organisers are trying to fix this but the management of the park's cafe aren't keen to open so early in the morning unless a significant number of runners are going to attend each week.

*I made up the 9 months part

BHF London to Brighton Bike Ride 2013

I've split the ride into sections based on how I logged it with Strava. I did this because I wasn't sure if my phone battery would cope with such a long ride. In the end it coped admirably with juice left to spare. You can find the GPS data for the individual sections by clicking on the Strava links below.

Mrs7t even got out of bed of early to take a quick snap of me as I was leaving the house.

Westminster to Clapham Common (6.8km) (strava)

I left Westminster at 6.30am and took a very gentle ride down to Clapham Common to find the official start area. Before the ride started I had time to find the toilets, eat a banana, soak up the atmosphere and then meet up with the rest of Team Downtown.

We were given, as requested, a start time of 7.30am - The good thing at this event is that it's not a strict start time. You can start anytime after your allocated slot. So once we had met up and queued at the start gate, we finally got to the start line at about 7.45am.

Clapham Common

L2B - Clapham Common to Carshalton (12.6km) (strava)

We moved quite slowly as the mass of riders worked their way through the pancake-flat streets of South London. The roads here were open as usual to other traffic so our pace was dictated by the traffic. An hour later we had arrived in Carshalton, where we had a quick pit stop.

L2B - Carshalton to Burstow (28.6km) (strava)

Once we left Carshalton the riders had started to space out quite a bit so we were able to pick up the pace slightly. The flatness of South London slowly started to give way to some undulating terrain. The first real hill that we encountered was How Lane, the congestion here was unexpected and despite attempting keep my feet of the ground for as long as possible, eventually I had no choice but to walk up the hill - very disappointing because I had been reading about the hills beforehand and was very excited about tackling all of them.

four fifths of the team

After this we continued on at a better pace. Every now and then the marshals were managing the junctions and it generally worked ok. As a team we mostly stayed together, but every time we hit a hill we would spread out slightly as we each rode at our own comfortable paces. So a little stop was in order every now and then to regroup.

Just after passing the village of Smallfield, we decided it was time for a quick pit stop. We ended this section at the 'First Burstow Scouts' headquarters. The time was somewhere around 11.25am.

L2B - Burstow to Ditchling Common (27.4km) (strava)

We departed Burstow Scouts' headquarters at 11.38 and it was now raining, that's if you can call it rain - it was really just spots of water in the air. In fact, it was quite refreshing. This next section was a gradual uphill drag until hitting Burgess Hill, where it got steeper. Up and up we went until we arrived in the village of Turners Hill - It's a significant psychological point as it is means you have reached the half-way mark. We stopped here, but only to regroup. The road goes downhill out of the village but soon enough you are back into the lower gears as you hit the next incline.

the pit stop before the beacon

Downhill is the general theme of the rest of this section. At 1.30pm someone in the team decided that we were due a break and the spot that was chosen was either a stroke of genius or just pure luck. We were only about 4 kilometres away from the part of the ride that most people worry about - the Beacon!

L2B - Ditchling Common - Brighton (17.6km) (strava)

The first time you see the South Downs looming in front you of is shortly after Ditchling Common and is an amazing sight. It doesn't take long to reach the point where you are shifting down into the lower gears. The road zig-zags its way up and the gradient switches between steep and very steep every now and then. My GPS data shows the steepest section as being a 30.6% gradient. I'd say that at least 80% of the people I saw on the incline had resorted to walking. Although it was hard work I just kept pushing on, and as I got closer to the top I was rewarded with the most amazing views. Then before I knew it the gradient reduced and I had conquered the Beacon!

congestion on the beacon

At the top almost everybody seems stops for a rest and you have a lot of congestion to deal with. We had agreed to regroup at the top so I pulled onto a bank at the side and kept an eye out for the rest of the team. Finally we all found each other and one of our team members opened a celebratory bottle of beer, from which we all took a well-earned sip!

the whole team at the top of the beacon

From here we had 12 kilometres of mostly downhill cycling into Brighton, but four kilometers into that we were stopped and held due to a crash somewhere ahead of us (this wasn't the first crash that had held us up, but it was the most significant - It took us 2hrs and 13 minutes to cover this last 17.6km stretch). We were here for so long that I even saw a spider had started to make a web between two other bicycles. Eventually an ambulance arrived and shortly after we were back on the road to Brighton. The very last section feels like being back in London as you start to encounter heavier traffic and traffic lights again. At around 3.45pm we saw the sea and were directed onto the final straight where the five of us crossed the line together while soaking up the cheers and applause from the hundreds (thousands?) of people that had lined Madeira Drive to welcome the riders.

In Brighton

We were greeted by one of our team member's parents, who had brought with them a home-made celebratory vegan cake - it was delicious. We proceeded to the beach where we kicked off our shoes, had some cake and relaxed in the glorious sunshine.

cake

After an hour, it was time for me to head off on my own to find the coach (and lorry) back to London which I had pre-booked a few weeks earlier. The process was all very simple. I had been given two tickets, one for me and one for the bike. Each lorry can hold enough bikes to cover two coaches full of riders, they put my bike on the lorry, I got on the coach. Two coaches and one lorry drove back to Clapham Common, where my ticket was matched with the ticket on my bike. These coaches run all afternoon and depart as and when they fill up.

all done

Clapham Common to Westminster (10.2km) (strava)

Once I had my bike back it was time for the final leg of my day of cycling. The journey to Clapham was 6.8km and the London to Brighton ride came out at 86.2km. I had already ridden further than I ever had before but I was very keen to break the 100km mark. So instead of riding straight back to Westminster I took a little detour and knocked the return leg up to 10.2km, bringing the total number of kilometres up to 103.2km. (I did about 2km more but didn't log it, so 105km is probably more accurate).

Final Thoughts

I thought the event was really well organised, and there were marshals and official pit stops in all the right places. The main downside is that the event is a victim of its own success - The vast numbers of riders and the inevitable congestion takes the shine off the event slightly. Saying that, I had an amazing day of cycling and I loved doing it as part of a team. I would definitely ride it again in the future, but would try to get the earliest possible start time in the hope of finding the roads a little clearer.

There are more photos from the day. You can view the set on my flickr page.

Riddlesdown parkrun 108

After not running at Riddlesdown parkrun since New Year's Day, I finally managed to resist the urge to continue touring and paid a visit to my parkrun home. There is something special about being at your home venue. We were greeted with smiles and questions on the theme of 'where the hell have you been?' - All in good nature of course.

I love buggy running (with our baby jogger 2) and today was an opportunity to do so on a dry(ish) Riddlesdown course - bringing my total number of buggy parkruns at Riddlesdown to four (and six buggy-running parkruns in total). I would have loved to have attempted a new buggy running course personal best, but I needed to take things easy as I would be cycling from London to Brighton the following day and didn't want to risk doing anything silly.

it was a windy day

We hung around at the back of the pack during the run briefing and slowly followed the rest of the runners into a fairly strong headwind across the downs. It's always fun running with the buggy as people tend to react as you reach and pass them - mostly with a comment asking if there's room for one more on-board!

For any new readers that are not familiar with the venue, I would direct you to the course description that I wrote for the parkrunfans blog. It's a really nice course and I really recommend that you give it a try if you haven't already.

Post-run I had a vague plan to pop across to Banstead parkrun to watch the end-of-year presentations as Jo Q had just won their women's annual points prize - congratulations Jo. Sadly time was not on my side and we were still standing on the downs recovering and chatting at 10am.

The Horseshoe, cake and talk of the next day's bike ride to Brighton all followed. Sadly, as with all good things, it had to come to an end and we jumped back in the car to Central London.

The touring resumes for the next three weeks. If everything goes to plan I would like to tick a few more North London venues off the list. Gladstone parkrunners are having their first birthday party on the last weekend in June so I plan to visit them on that day. I'd like to visit Oak Hill, Grovelands and settle some unfinished business at Highbury Fields* in the near future so I'll work on those ones next. If anyone feels like joining me, please let me know.

I am due back at Riddlesdown on 13 July to celebrate the two year anniversary, which will include watching the end-of-year presentations and I'm pretty sure there will be a slice of cake or two. Why don't you put it in your diary and pay Riddlesdown parkrun a visit! I imagine it'll be another buggy run, I might even have a stab at beating the buggy running personal best (currently 26:39 from event 72).

*I have run at Highbury Fields but it was a special event and is recorded as a bespoke parkrun (event #3) (as much as I love having the bespoke parkrun on my log, I would like Highbury Fields to be properly represented, hence the unfinished business).

London to Brighton 2013 (pre-ride stuff)

Many years ago, my Grandad woke up one morning and just decided on-the-spot to ride his bike from London to Brighton. This year he sadly passed away, so when I found out that some of my friends from Riddlesdown parkrun were forming a team to take part in the London to Brighton bike ride on Sunday 16 June, it felt right to sign up with them and follow in his footsteps, or maybe I should say cycle in his tracks.

The Bike
I'll be riding my B'twin Forme 5 (aka fitness 5). I bought it back in March and the decision to do so was mostly based on my entry into this event. The only upgrade I have made is to change the tyres. I have replaced the standard b'twin rubber with a set of special edition 'London' Schwalbe Durano Plus's - They are a lot more comfortable and are designed to be puncture resistant, so I have my finger's crossed for a puncture-free ride.

Training
My training has largely been disrupted by a slightly sore knee, which ultimately means that I haven't done anywhere near the amount of training that I would have liked. Still, that element just adds to the fun. As well as being my first cycling event, this is also the first event I've taken part in where I have never covered the distance before. And to make it worse, I've barely touched any hills. So don't mention the Beacon!

This is the training distance/time I've done over the last few months:

June:	111.6 km	6:59:14
May:	197.7 km	12:34:19
April:	197.1 km	11:32:26
March:	347.8 km	20:46:38
February:	84.4 km	5:02:22

Fund Raising
The ride is organised by the British Heart Foundation, and our team leader Nicki has set up a team fundraising page. So if you feel the urge to hand over some of your dosh to the BHF you can do so here and we will all be very grateful for your support.

My parents donated some of my Grandad's belongings to the BHF and they have already raised over £500.

The Dreaded Backpack
I was trying to avoid carrying a backpack with me, but the list of things to take kept growing to the point where I reluctantly gave in to the inevitable. I have a long, but hopefully not too heavy, list of items to carry. Fortunately some of the items are going to be consumed along the way so the bag will get lighter. I've been wearing the backpack on most of my rides lately so I feel much more comfortable riding with it.

GPS Logging
Also having a bit of an issue (hopefully now resolved) with GPS tracking. I am considering buying a Garmin but until I finally work out which one to buy I am still using my phone's GPS, and currently using Strava - which I am loving by the way. I'm not entirely sure that the battery will last the whole journey, so I've ordered a second battery and will log the route in sections based on the points that we stop for breaks. When the battery looks like it won't successfully log another section, I'll switch to the second, fully charged, battery. That's the plan, maybe it'll work, maybe not. Hopefully there will be enough juice to take some photos and partake in a bit of tweeting along the way! (I won't be tweeting while cycling by the way)

Lastly
Random nightmares aside, I'm feeling ok about it despite the awful training. I have no ambitions to finish in a particular time, just to make it to the end will be reward enough for me. The original plan was to book a hotel and spend a couple of days in Brighton with the ladies. However, this hasn't worked out and I have bought a ticket on the coach back to London - £24 gets me and the bike back to Clapham Common - I assume I'll have a very slow ride back to Westminster from here.

I'll write a full blog post about the day once it's all done. Thanks for reading.

Wormwood Scrubs parkrun

The is a newer Wormwood Scrubs parkrun write-up, here: Wormwood Scrubs parkrun 2023

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By reading wikipedia I found out that 'In 1908, the route for the Olympic Marathon went across the Scrubs on the final stages of the race from Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium at White City.' Quite fitting that there is now a parkrun here. I also found out that the Scrubs was recognised as the duelling ground of London - Even though parkrun is a run and definitely not a race, I'm sure the venue has seen its fair share of parkrun duels over the years.

I arrived at the Scrubs bright and early (way too early, in fact) to join the friendly and very welcoming residents of W12 for their second birthday celebrations. Also present were the Roundshaw on tour gang, a fellow blogger and juneathon-er, and I met Banstead runner and uber-tourist Johnathan Pegg (currently on 61 different venues).

The run starts in the shadow of 'HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs' which is a category B prison - defined as 'Those who do not require maximum security, but for whom escape needs to be made very difficult'. If the prisoners have access to the windows, I'm sure they look on with envy every parkrunday.

The first thing to do was find somewhere to lock up the bike. As far as actual bike racks go, there are some way over the other side of the Scrubs near the entrance to the Wormwood Scrubs Pony Centre, and one single rack in the car park that was located within a car parking space. The best options seem to be to find a post or pole nearby or to leave the bike, as I did, on the grass next to the finish line. There is also a children's playground with a nice fence, it's not too far from the start/finish areas but it's not within view of the parkrun.

If I had chosen to travel by car, I could have parked in the car park adjacent to the start area. Those wishing to travel by tube train will find East Acton station is very conveniently located for the run - just remember to check Transport for London's website in advance to make sure they aren't closing the line for engineering works. However there are underground stations in every direction so you do have quite a good selection of options if the Central Line is recieving some tlc.  If traveling by mainline train, you have a choice of Willesden Junction or Acton Main Line Station.

The Linford Christie Athletics track is just a stone's throw away and is where you'll find the toilets and the Thames Valley Harriers clubhouse - which also doubles up as the venue for the post-run social gathering, where I had the opportunity to try one of their famous flapjacks.

The park is effectively divided into two halves - the eastern half is mostly given over to sports pitches, and the west side is the scrub-land (An area of land that is uncultivated and covered with sparse stunted vegetation). The course is two laps around the scrub-land half of the park, and is run on grass and dirt paths. It also undulates ever so slightly in places.

En-route you will pass a model aircraft flying zone and if you look up you might catch a glimpse of the BT tower and the Shard far away in the distance. I'm also told that you can see the arch of Wembley Stadium, but I was so focused I didn't see any of these until I went back around the course post-run to take some photos.

The scrubs half of the park is subject to a by-law which allows the military to restrict public access if required. I don't know if this has ever affected the run but it might be worth checking their news, twitter, and/or facebook page beforehand just in case.

If you have ever run at Riddlesdown parkrun you will surely notice the similarities of some sections of the two courses, and just like Riddlesdown, this course looks like it will be a huge amount of fun to run when it is muddy! Another similarity between the two courses is the presence of nesting birds in the long grass areas that both courses weave their way around.

I was glad to be part of a new attendance record for the event, beating their previous largest attendance by 17 runners. It was also nice to watch the end-of-year prizes being given out in the clubhouse afterwards - the community at this parkrun is clearly very strong. If you're a parkrun tourist and thinking of visiting, definitely pop in to the clubhouse for a post-run flapjack and if you are local runner of any level get yourself down there every week and become part of this wonderful community!

I almost forgot to mention that the course is buggy friendly. Although it may be tough in muddy conditions.

Note: I borrowed the photo of the runners at the start line from the Wormwood Scrubs facebook page. The others were taken by me.

New Balance 1080v3

The New Balance 1080v3 road shoe (part of the Autumn-Winter 2013 collection)

Before I get on with my review, here is what New Balance have to say about them -

“The 1080v3 is our premium neutral shoe offering runners comfort and protection in a lightweight frame. With N2 cushioning, ABZORB crash pad and a thin, light arch-securing FantomFit quarter the 1080v3 is a very high mileage neutral shoe.”

So what do all these fancy names mean?

ABZORB crash pad and Forefoot (“Our top of line foam. A superior blend of cushioning and compression set features with DuPont^TM Engage® and Isoprene Rubber for the ultimate ride.”)

FantomFit upper (“A skeletally engineered upper that provides ultralight support and fit. Created by fusing two extremely thin materials with a no-sew process.”)

‘T-Beam’ (“A lightweight, flexible, TPU shank engineered to deliver optimum torsional stability and arch support through a unique centre beam design.”)

N2 cushioning ("Nitrogen infused N2 technology in the heel provides premium shock absorption and smooth transition into the mid-stance")

And the rest of the spec looks like this -

Weight: Men’s - 288g, Women’s – 225g
Last: PL-1 Natural 
8mm Drop (20mm-12mm)

Price: expect to pay around £100 on the high street

When I went to the New Balance press day for the launch of their new range, the rep from NB did say that the current trend for colour schemes is for them to be on the louder side. While not the most garish shoe you'll see in this year's ranges, the blue/orange colour scheme that I have been sent certainly does stand out, and I have to admit that I am a big fan of this particular combination of colours. There are a number of other colour options including a much more discreet and primarily white shoe with touches of blue, a grey with red and a grey with orange (see below for this last one). For the ladies, the colourways are fairly similar but use shades more commonly found in the women's ranges, such as purples, pinks and lighter blues.

The shoe itself feels nice and light, and at 288g are a tad lighter than my current road shoes - the Adidas Boston 2. The sole is quite firm, but unless you're really into minimalist shoes you probably wouldn't even notice. Then again, if you were into minimalist shoes you probably wouldn't be considering these anyway. I'd say the stiffness of the sole is similar to other shoes that I have tried in this category.

Putting the shoes on, they feel cosy. Even though the sole is firm, the shoe itself is very comfortable - nice and soft. Possibly even a little bouncy. The upper is nice and soft and hugs the top of the foot nicely without being too tight. At first I thought the toe box felt a tad narrow, but then I realised I had been wearing my New Balance MT10's all day, which have a wider toe box. Now I've spent some time in the shoe, the toe box feels fine and is actually a much better fit than the Adidas Boston 2's that I had been wearing previously.

The heel-to-toe drop is something that interests me, and these come in at 8mm, which is right in-between the standard road shoe, usually around 12mm, and the minimal shoes, which tend to be 4mm right the way down to zero drop. Over the last couple of years I have tried various different drops and thicknesses of soles and my feet feel happiest at around 8mm with some cushioning, which makes these pretty much perfect.

I've been running in these since May 2013 and I absolutely love them. I can safely say that these are the best running shoes that I have owned to date. If it wasn't for the £100 price tag I would go out and buy a second pair this instant. The test pair that I was sent is in a size 9, which is probably slightly on the large side for me, however I have managed fine with them (I just wear thick socks). I have subsequently tried on an 8.5 in a running shop and I find that is a better fit for me. In standard everyday shoes I usually buy an 8, so you might find you have to go up half-a-size larger in order to get the best fit.

After two months of using these shoes they have become my go-to shoe. I haven't even considered wearing anything else for any of my road runs - My Adidas Boston 2's have been sat in the back of the cupboard ever since the 1080's arrived. I haven't had a huge amount of running shoes over the relatively short period of time I've been running, but these are without doubt my favourite.

Update January 2014: I like them so much that I have wanted to buy a second pair for ages, and it just so happens that they were reduced from £100 down to £69 in Sweatshop's January 2014 sale, so I finally picked up that second pair (in an 8.5). These are a slightly different colourway which I like even more than the original pair!

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Disclaimer: These shoes (the first pair) were received free of charge and I can confirm that the views here are entirely my own.