Hello Everyone. Today is parkrun day, a free 5K event which takes place every Saturday morning all around the world. It is for everyone, slow, fast, able, disabled, big, small and everyone in between. Oh and don't forget about the super Mum's and Dad's who push their babies in buggies. You can walk, jog, run, run/walk, it's not a race, just a run in the park and loads of us here on Bridge to 10K do it religiously every Saturday morning.
Some of us may not be able to do a parkrun at the moment so until parkrun returns fully for everyone some of us will continue to take part on our own in a Virtual parkrun every Saturday morning called a (not)parkrun. Or if you are away on Holidays, prefer to run on your own, or do not have a parkrun close by you a (not)parkrun is perfect, please feel free to join in. Please post a little run report after your parkrun or (not)parkrun and let everyone know how you got on. The little run report can be done over a post parkrun coffee and treat/cake. (parkrun is all about the after run coffee and cake, and meeting friends old and new).
If you are a new graduate and would like to start, all you have to do is run, walk or jog at a parkrun or a 5K run/jog/walk (not)parkrun anytime today or tomorrow and write a little run report under this post. It's like a little community and it is good fun, sets you up nicely for the weekend. If you want to you can register on the parkrun website and you can log your 5K (not)parkrun. In fact you can log any 5K done during the week as a (not)parkrun.
For anyone whom has not done a real parkrun yet and if it is available to you, give it a try. It is the most wonderful community event. Saturday mornings will never be the same again.
Looking forward to hearing from all of you who ran in real proper parkruns and (not)parkruns. Happy running and have a lovely weekend.
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damienair
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Good morning everyone. This morning I traveled 90 minutes from my home to run at Strokestown parkrun. It was a lovely 3 lap course around a large country estate. There was just over 20 runners and walkers and I found myself running along at the start with a small leading group. After the first lap I was running along in first place leading from the front. I maintained the leading position for the second lap, however the pressure of being up front and my inexperience of elite athletics showed itself as we went into the 3rd lap. I was over taken by two runners on the last lap, but I’m happy to report that I got my first ever podium position finishing in 3rd place 🥉. Official time not in yet but my Garmin watch has me at a finish time of 26:08. Happy running everyone. 😁
Brilliant work Damien. That must be about 10minutes faster than when you started your recovery. Running with quicker runners gives us that extra lift too; you will get them next time around!😉
Whoop whoop Damien. If it was a race rather than a run you would indeed have got a bronze medal. 🤣🤣 I’m not sure I could cope with being lead runner either - not that it’s likely to happen
Good morning Damien and other parkrunners, out of 23 parkruns at Palacerigg Country parkrun I have never been able to run a sub 33 minutes there until #24 this morning when I got a PB time of 32:16 and a +60 per cent age grading of 62.24 per cent age grading, I am very pleased with my run this morning, first personal best for years.
Thanks aliboo, it was a case of 24th time lucky, been trying for ages to get just under 33 minutes on that all trail course with hills, got it this morning Quite a contrast in time from last week at Palacerigg parkrun, last Saturday I was the parkWALKER and completed it in a time of 1:04:44, today was 32:16, what a difference.
Well done Damienair great time and a podium 👏 👏 👏. I went to my local parkrun it's the toughest out of all the West Yorkshire parkruns and I got a pb for that course but not a overall pb but I'm happy with that 😀
It was almost two years ago that on my very first time at Palacerigg I got a time of 33:05, the last few times at Palacerigg have been 33:05 twice and a 33:06 once, most other runs there have been around 34:30, so to get a sub 33 run today made me very happy 😊
Good morning -well I have finally done it!! After reading about everyones' Parkrun adventures since the return to live Parkruns after lockdown , registering for Parkrun well over a year ago and running past Parkruns on my Saturday morning run I finally bit the bullet and ran my first live Parkrun! (I don't like to rush into things!)
It was small and friendly - ( I even saw a couple of people I knew). 3 laps , a bit uppy downy, but nothing too extreme!
I didn't come last , my time was slightly better than I expected given my recent efforts but leave me lots of room for improvement.!
Back home, shower, coffee and freshly baked pastry in the garden. Nice start to the weekend !
Hi cheekychipmunks ! I have been thinking about it for months!! was originally planning to run Severn Bridge but was put off by advertised lack of toilets at the start so I ended up in Thornbury instead!
So glad that you’ve done parkrun Week7! The first one is the hardest as you haven’t got a clue what is going on, and you’ll love trying to beat your time each week. You’ll also start recognising those who run around your time. Is it a Bristol event?
I am glad you had a good experience at Thornbury. My friend lives there and she found it was just club runners and was the only slower runner so didn’t go back. It’s probably become more popular and inlclusive now.
I was definitely one of the slower ones . There were quite a few club runners but everyone was friendly and encouraging - especially once they found out I was new to Parkrun. Even advice worthy of the C25k chat- go slowly so you don't get injured and can get a pb next time ! I think that a sunny day helped too. I was also given a run down of other local Parkruns including which one has the loudest music and the best cake at the finish- vital information!! Determined to try the bridge soon though!!!
Oh yes I loved the bridge parkrun, even though they don’t close the road like they did for the 10k race we did last year. 😂. I’m sure cheekychipmunks would love to meet up again.
Congratulations week 7, of course you didn't come last, not even 2nd or 3rd last, the person who comes last at a parkrun are the tail walker and the parkwalker
Wow. Super well done. How great is that to be at the 1,000th parkrun where it all started from. You were making history today. Atmosphere must have been electric. How do you manage finish funnels at an event like that 😁?There must have been an army of elite volunteers.
There were several queues and they had chosen runners to hold letters of the alphabet. So it'd go A, B, C, etc in the various funnels and then go around each funnel once the next letter came up.
I ended up giving up as I was thirsty and needed the loo, but my friends, who had finished first managed to get their numbers. They were around 4200 and the queue still hadn't finished.
Sounds huge but great fun. There were some "visitors " at the Parkrun which I attended today collecting a number 222 Parkrun. Last week they did Bushy Park for the 999 !
That’s an awful lot of finish tokens to sort afterwards DiogoC! A huge turn out for a very special occasion, I’m glad you and your friends enjoyed yourselves!
There had a report from someone who attended Bushy DiogoC , and as a London district runner, it had to be you. We heard that people were queueing for 1.5k to get to the finish.
I think the volunteers deserve a medal for coping today, and who cares about a time on a day like today.
Well done to you DiogoC on running at the 1000th parkrun at Bushy park, however, I notice on their result page, 1787 ran, the time of the tail walker was 1;10:31, perhaps the results computer couldn't accommodate the other+3000 runners,
You are correct Dexy5, so many there it takes time to finish the results when there are 6000+ runners, Palacerigg Country parkrun where I got that PB had 65 running, quite a contrast to Bushy Park parkrun.
I was there DiogoC ! Mad wasn’t it? You must have been well ahead of me if you got a token. By the time I got through the funnel they were just scanning barcodes and not giving any position indication. It’s going to be ages before we get the results, those amazing volunteers have got a mammoth task on their hands to compile it all!
Three in a row for me! That’s never happened before, and now ten total which is a mini milestone! MrU and I are trying to do twelve parkruns this year and we’re making sure we get a few in while the weather’s good.
This morning was Blaise Castle. A lovely two and a bit lap course over grass and through shady woods. I’m still finding my breathing hard to manage post Covid but it was nice to make it safely round and tick off another one in the sunshine. Coffee and cake felt extra well earned today!
I enjoyed it! Today it was probably at its finest in the sunshine though. Nice course-quite flat but with some undulations to keep it interesting. I’d go again!
I squeaked in a couple of minutes before the start of my local parkrun. My guts are sometimes rather unsettled in the mornings, leading to many bathroom visits, and this morning was one of them.
When I arrived most people were there and the first timers' briefing was under way. Some people arrived during the Run Director's speech, so I wasn't the last to arrive.
I greeted a few regulars who had been doing parkrun tourism the last few weeks. There was much muttering going on, and the RD's countdown to the start was almost drowned out by it.
Off we go! About the usual number of runners today (70). As usual I pace myself at the start. It's a hard course and many come a cropper by zooming off at the start and finding later on that they've not enough energy to cope with the slopes.
My toe's still not 100% back to normal (a little joint discomfort outside runs) so no heroics. My aim today was simply to get round without either aggravating the toe or needing any walk breaks.
By about half way round the first lap I'd found my steady pace which was slightly faster than the pack I'd found myself in. I gradually got past them.
Greet the marshal on the corner before the S-bend climb. He's a fixture there almost every week, with his flask of coffee and his cigarette.
The no-rose garden had a few fallen spiky conker shells.
I got lapped about two thirds round the second lap. On the third lap I had a surprise: I saw my next door neighbour out taking his toddler daughter to the park. We exchanged a few "fancy seeing you here" type remarks before I was out of earshot.
A bit further round there was a lady who was obviously in late stage pregnancy. I asked and she confirmed she was walking the course. On approaching the roseless garden, the marshal there was playing Lynn Anderson's hit on repeat again.
Fourth lap had me encountering next door neighbour again, asking me how many laps we did, "Four, and we finish up by the tennis courts".
I'm actually feeling a bit pleased about the run as nothing's hurting, I'm not out of breath, and I don't feel like I'm about to keel over as I finish. I don't think I'd have appreciated a fifth lap, but this felt just right.
Finish token collected, then both barcodes scanned, I hang around chatting with a few people for a bit.
The sunshine was not glaring and the temperature was just right for running in tee shirt and shorts.
Official time was 32:52 which is an improvement on last week's 33:31.
Runners assemble at parkrun. First timers' briefing is in the foreground.
Congratulations to you nowster on completing your parkrun in a good time of 32;52, not too long until you will get a sub 30, but take it easy before that.✅
Hello damienair and all, I haven’t done any running for 2 weeks as I’ve had a piriformis issue and have been doing physio exercises at home and avoiding exacerbating it by running, cycling or sitting too long. I tried 1k during the week and did my first home parkrun run for many weeks this morning. It was cool with a NE breeze. Numbers were quite low for Southsea. Was it because people were queuing on their phones for Oasis concert tickets? Or maybe they had headed off to Bushy for its crazy 1000th run? Over 6000 runners I hear
Anyway, I was pleased that I managed the 5k without any walking, by running with 2 regular runners from my usual time group. I could feel both the piriformis and my left hip but not in real pain. I’m booked to see my physio on Tuesday so he will be able to check out the hip. These things all seem to be connected and the piriformis irritation is usually because of something else not working properly.
So garmin time 34:33 and parkrun time 35:14 and back to age grade score 59:32%.
Most important I’m hopefully ok for running New Forest 10k next weekend.
Happy running everyone. Oh and as usual, breakfast at a beach cafe with Oldgirlruns and UpTheStanley followed
Glad to hear the piriformis behaved itself (more or less). You may well be right about Oasis - I overheard a conversation at Lakeside today where it sounded as though somebody was in the queue while running!
Nice running Dexy, I’m pleased you managed to run the whole thing! I can’t imagine how we’d cope with 6000 at Southsea, can you - it’s mind boggling! Huge well done to the Bushy volunteers!
Great run for you today Dexy5, well done, yes I think the numbers were a little down at Southea because of Bushy park and that Oasis concert next August, speaking of which the 18 year old son of my nextdoor neighbour, that's the owner of Holly the dog was on the phone for ages wanting a ticket for a Oasis concert next August in Edinburgh, he was told he was 16th thousand in a queue, he finally gave up after more than a hour on the phone, however, his friend managed to get a ticket for him on another call, price £150 each.
Very well done Dexy. Delighted that all went well for you today. Best wishes for your physio appointment on Tuesday and best wishes for your 10K next week.
A nice warm morning. A slow 1k, stretching exercises and then a 5k; except that I only back off to 5k pace in the slower periods these days. 5k time was 30:25 …stretches then a hot cup of coffee at the cafe. Good start to the day.
Hello PR friends. My first run since the 10k race last weekend, but I haven’t been idle. We’ve had a few days in Devon and clocked up plenty of pretty strenuous hiking kms. 🐕
So I’d suggested we popped by Exeter Riverside PR on our way home. It was cancelled last time we were down that way and I wanted to set the record straight! It also gave Mr Cheeky the chance to contact his old school chum, so they had a good chin wag with Flossie while I ran.
A lovely out and back course, along the river, though some woods then along the edge of the university playing fields. Loved it and was pleased to work off some of the mountain of food we’ve consumed this week - only to be topped up with a bacon bap for us all afterwards. ❤️
Very well done Cheeky on your parkrun tourism this morning. Perfect way to celebrate with a bacon bap. I hope there will be a post parkrun bacon bap in Southampton. 😀
Timekeeping this week whilst eldest kitten RD’d. It all went pretty well, we had quite a lot of tourists as it’s the last Saturday of the school holidays. Total numbers nowhere near as many as Bushy but we had 452 which is quite high for us. Eldest kitten got the results out before Bushy had even finished getting everyone through the funnel 😂
According to the 5k app, this was my volunteering 250th ‘role’, so that’ll do for an arbitrary. I’m still a way off the proper v250 though.
I won’t be running parkrun for a couple of weeks as Katnap and I have the biggest week of marathon training ahead of us, and we’re taking youngest back to uni next Saturday. If I’m still in one piece by 14th September, I’ll be very happy to do a gentle, easy 5k!
Well done Team Katz. Yes I said to UTS that if we had been put down for everything we had done for parkrun (especially during the week) we would have over 500 role credits, but our parkrun just tends to put you down for one when multi-tasking..
I hope all goes well with your training for Berlin.
Cheers Dexy. It’s a bit hit and miss with us. I hardly ever get put down for token sorting as it just goes without saying most weeks 😅 I suspect it’s the same for you?
No, I am fully recognised on the core team as lead finish tokens, and am shown weekly on the roster as Finish Token Support . Thats not the parkrun HQ definition of that role but it was better than putting me down as Other.
A first for me and an international one in the US 🇺🇸.
We are in Florida for a few days so planned a Parkrun around our trip. Our nearest was Clermont Waterfront. An out & back course on nice wide paths, shared with cyclists that went along a lake. Thankfully it’s a nice early start at 7:30am to beat the heat. It was already 25 degrees and very humid. I decided it wasn’t worth pushing for a time so just trotted along at a steady pace.
A super friendly event, which would be great to return to when it was less humid.
Back to Lakeside this morning after a 3 week break - life keeps getting in the way! Cloudy but not as humid as I was fearing. Set off well and maintained a good pace until the last k when I faded a bit. Came in at 31.04 which knocked 10 seconds off my best post-hernia time but didn't quite crack the sub 31 - next time? That'll be in 2 weeks - see you all then!
You are definitely on the way up again JP, and it’s good to have a post op target. I always check a post pandemic PB as I can’t see a way of getting back to 2020 times.
Today we got the 7am ferry from IOW and went to Brockenhurst parkrun. We were there really early ! It's their last week on the summer course atm at Brockenhurst College, a 4 lap course all on grass fields ( not my 1st choice-laps -eek! ) not very many there, 87 in total. Their winter course sounds more me, 1 lap on trails! So may go back.They started and everyone shot off, this was a fast field hardly and slower people. I'm a very "Steady pace" runner last couple of yrs and was a little worried, luckily a nice local lady joined me during 1st lap and we did the whole thing running and chatting it was 👍 last lap was my fastest.
Then a lovely breakfast at nearby cafe, on to explore Hurst Castle, nearly 6 miles walked there along shingle (hard going !) So think we earned our our Pub tea, now waiting for ferry back ⛴ xxx
I got up really early this morning and went to Bushy to join in with celebrating its 1000th parkrun. It was completely bananas and I loved it! I started at what I thought was near the back but I actually had no idea how many more people joined behind me. Took a few minutes to get to the start 🤣. There was a lot of walking because of congestion but that suited me. When I was close-ish to the finish line I joined the back of a huge queue of folk. I stopped my watch which was on 36 minutes and 4.7km. It was another 25 minutes before I reached the finish/timer point and into 1 of apparently 7 funnels. I think I was in the funnel for 1.5 hours. By then I’d made friends with all the people around me and the time flew by. We heard that all 3500 tokens had been used, all the raffle tickets had been used (contingency in case the numbers exceeded 3500) and people were having their position written on their hands before going to a scanner to record the result. Then a volunteer announced that to move things along they would just scan our barcodes. I don’t know how they will give time and position results. The volunteers were fantastic, the atmosphere was fantastic and I really don’t care what my time and position were, just so glad I went. What a nuts day that was, perfect!
I’ve just been reading all the comments on their Facebook page and it’s sounds crazily wonderful. Why didn’t I guess that you would be there crazy chick? You will probably all get the same time at the end of handwritten positions, but like you say, it was being there that counts.
🤣🤣🤣 I loved it Dexy. Someone in the queue thought we might all get 59:59 which is apparently some kind of parkrun agreed thing when the normal process goes awry x
Ah that’s interesting! I guess this was uncharted territory today and the RD was having to think of solutions on the hoof. I hope all the volunteers are asleep now after this x
Very well done. You were a part of history today. Amazing to think that there was such a massive crowd and everyone was happy and glad to be in funnel queues for extended periods of time. What an amazing experience to have witnessed today. parkrun is magic. Amazingly super well done to all the amazing volunteers there today.
Me neither. Saw lots of people just leaving the funnels as they simply couldn’t wait any longer so they’ll be lots of unknowns in the final results. So much to sort through! X
That could have been a frustrating ordeal; but you clearly made the best of it and enjoyed yourself. I find myself wondering whether there were enough toilets (it’s a Yorkshire thing). You can never have too many of them ……🙂
Two things to report this week.Firstly a Freedom Run at Forfar Lochside on Wednesday, we could see the course from our camping pitch. We actually did it about 7 years ago before there was a parkrun and said it would ne perfect, just under 5K around the loch so a little loop required.
Then today our 5th visit to Ellon. This has always been my fastest run of the year but this time it came behind my three visits to Burnage (which is flatter). But still a nice run although it was hot.
Today at Cape Pembroke (Falklands) it was a bright warm day, which is notable because we're still in winter here and there's snow on the mountaintops, but most noteworthy of all was that there was NO WIND. The average windspeed on the islands is 30mph and there's never no wind, very few people running today had ever done a wind-free parkrun. Normally we have a nice push on the downhill leg and then on the way back we're going uphill into the wind. Nobody ever manages negative splits.
33% of the field got their PB today! Not me, because I'm still on a long looooong road to recovery, but I went a good deal quicker than I'd planned and managed my first ever negative split at Cape Pembroke. Happy days!
Wow that's brilliant. Very well done on completing your calm wind free parkrun. Well done also to the 33% of the field on their PB's. Best wishes to you also on a speedy recovery.
What a day. A friend from Bradford was in the area also they joined me. Whilst comparing runs isn’t always correct due to terrain she was 3 minutes faster than me comparing her home run to mine.
So same run and we finished 2 minutes apart, a lot closer than I expected and I set my third PB of the month as well taking 32 seconds off my previous best last week. Very happy with that.
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