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 Damien and other parkrunners, 5 years ago today I ran a PB at Drumpellier parkrun in a time of 30:55, this morning my time was only 8 seconds slower in a time of 31:03 but a much higher age grading of 64:68% which I am very happy about, this was my 3rd run this week after my PB 10K on Sunday and I ran a 8K on Wednesday, so a good week for running.
🏃✅by the way I got my BIB and allocated time for The Great Scottish Run on Sunday October 6th, the time they expect to run it is between 80 and 90 minutes, most of my 10K runs are between 70 and 74 minutes let alone that PB of 67:38 last Sunday.
Congratulations to you UTS on your run today despite being 90 seconds slower than 5. years ago but that 70.6% age grading is excellent, my age grading 5 years ago was just under 60%, today it was 64.68% which is my highest ever, also today was my fastest parkrun this year.
It was actually a month JP, a few weeks ago I got a PB at Palacerigg Parkrun and just last Sunday I got a 10K PB at The Cumbernauld 10K in a time of 67 minutes and 38 seconds, by the way I am in the wrong wave for the Great Scottish Run on Sunday October 6th, most of my 10K runs have been around 69/73 minutes, that's the green wave, I have been allocated to run in the pink wave which is running in a time of 80/90 minutes,
Yes that could well be the case,JP, however, I might enjoy talking to the 80 minute pacer and only run faster over the last 50 metres as I did last Sunday.
It could be that they had too many people in the green wave time zone, so have spread you over the 2 waves Al. It’s timed from when you cross the line so it doesn’t matter.
If you go for the front half of your wave you won’t get held up by the walkers and much slower runners at the beginning. Having said that, if you are surrounded by people much faster than you it’s easy to get carried away with them and going faster than your normal pace. Wherever you are, you will soon find the room to stick to your normal speed.
Thanks Dexy, I have been reading in detail all about the run including where the exact starts are for the green and pink waves, two different streets very close to each other, I know exactly where they are and will 'try' and get to where the 80 minutes pacer is, there is also a 85 minutes pacer (one hour twenty five) as well, those pacers with the pace time flags are very friendly and like runners talking to them when running like the 70 minutes pacer I was with just last Sunday, I was with him the whole time, however, he was running at 68 minutes 10K pace, for the last 50 metres he asked me to sprint to the finishing line, hence those sub 22 seconds from 68 minutes.✅🏃
We went to Five Arches this morning. The weather was grey and drizzly, and I had a sore hamstring from weights on a Wednesday plus a sore eye from the tail end of conjunctivitis. Very tempted to stay in bed but I enjoyed it in the end. Not my favourite course but I could see coming back here to try and get a PB. Very flat and a decent amount of space not to get stuck behind people for too long, The 30 minute ish finish time this morning seemed a fair bit faster than the super easy effort justified. Having run 10k last weekend, running 5k actually felt quite short. That never happens!!!
Thank you-and you are so right. Even on the days where it’s been a bit of a grotty run , I’ve been able to console myself with being one run closer to a new t-shirt 🤣! Seriously though, I’ve always come home with a smile and some genuine satisfaction that I probably ran further and faster than would have done alone on a rainy Saturday morning. That’s no small thing! ❤️
What an amazing morning. I visited Southampton parkrun this morning with my Son. Weather was lovely and the park was beautiful. It was fantastic to meet some VRB’s before the start. I am so grateful to you all for taking the time to come and meet up. We were all dressed in Apricot parkrun and parkrun T-Shirts. There was a very large crowd of over 1,000 runners and walkers. It was such a great experience. Took about 2K to settle into the run before the crowd thinned out a little. At 3.3K I was struggling to hang onto the pace and my head was fighting with me to take a walking break. Thankfully I fought against it and kept going without a walking break. At 4K I was fine again and picked up pace for the last kilometre. I could see UTS not far ahead of me but I couldn’t get near him. My finish time according to my watch was 26:11. Very happy with that. We regrouped again afterwards and went for a beautiful post parkrun breakfast. Thanks again to everyone for your amazing company. So lovely to meet you all and to see the Oisin/Flossie reunion. 😁
So lovely to see you both again damienair . Oisin has grown up since we last saw him, and was fastest finisher of the group. Oh to be young again. Photo won’t upload so will try later.
What a fabulous way to spend a Saturday morning! So happy to see you and Oisin again damienair , and both Oisin and Flossie have matured by 5 years since last time. And us too of course, but that doesn’t count! 😅
It was lovely to meet you and Oisin today Damienair, it was a brilliant meet up wasn’t it! I hope you both enjoy the rest of your weekend here in the south!
We had a great afternoon watching a match outside Eastleigh. Amazing atmosphere and we were followers of neither team. But 5 mins after kick off we were 100% Eastleigh FC and they won 4-2. Great afternoon.
Great to meet you Damien (and Oisin of course!) in real life after so many years corresponding on this weekly parkrun post - here's to many more years!
Thank you so much Mudita11 , Mr M gave Oisin some great tips in relation to the football. He absolutely loved it and found it very difficult to get up and go back to School this morning.
An excellent parkrun today. We have been away in our van for a few days to visit Formby beach and Liverpool, finishing today with Crosby parkrun. What a lovely event, the 13 year old Run Director doing her 101st volunteer day made a brilliant speech " the defib is on the prom with my Grandma", "return your barcode, my Dad will be fuming if he has to order more replacements"A bit tough going on the wet sand for the first mile, then up onto the promenade and back along grass before heading into the leisure centre for a bacon roll.
No results yet but I wasn't fast because I stopped to take photos of the Anthony Gormley marshals
We went there a couple of years ago, but not on a Saturday unfortunately. The Another Place figures are fantastic in that setting, and I believe at Christmas the locals put hats and scarves on them. That young RD must have had a captive audience too
Hi Damienair, Went to Lister Park with son in law newly passed driver (I like to get to parkrun a bit earlier).Just made it to the park but to make the start we had to sprint to make it my time was 31.06 so not happy with that but it was my 48th and 2 to the magical 50 now. Been a tough 60 hour working week this week legs felt heavy as well just happy I got another run done. Son in law did it in just over 22 minutes and his mate just over 28 .But I'm 30 years older, so much faster than me. Well done, everyone who got to a parkrun this morning
Southampton parkrun was the first VRB meet up for me and UpTheStanley , and four and a half years later we are back. Apart from cheekychipmunks , there was a different set of runners to meet with. There was Flossie, Mudita11 , JonathanP , Oldgirlruns , linda9389 , damienair and son, and Mr M also joined us for breakfast.
This run is 2nd largest event after Bushy, with 1031people running, jogging, and walking but it’s not as overwhelming as it sounds.
After an unexpected evening getting a neighbour to hospital following a stroke, lack of sleep and an early alarm, I was not expecting much, but the run started and I followed. Unlike Damien, I did walk in places on the uphill stretches but I made up for it on the downhills. I was behind the 35’ pacer at the end but my watch said 34:19 and parkrun time was 33:57 . Although I was 33 seconds slower than before, my age grade score increased from 58.08% to 61.56%. There have to be some advantages with getting old, and I’m very happy with that. Oisin came in as first of us, but I did beat him in age grade score. 🤣
It was so lovely to share a big table at The Cowherds Pub, organised by Mudita. How lucky that she booked a table as they were short staffed today and would not have let us order otherwise.
Thanks for coming to see us Damien and Oisin. You have earned your South compass point.
Super well done Dexy and thank you for coming to meet us and of course huge thanks to Mudita11 for arranging the booking for breakfast. Amazing morning and as someone who is not a fan of football I got sucked in and became an Eastleigh FC fan today.
Deep breath, and here I go again. My first reply disappeared after whirring for about 25 minutes. 😩
An early 5am alarm was no problem for me as I like making my tourist trips into adventures! It gave me time for a lovely cuppa before heading off with Flossie at 6am to meet damienair , Oisin, Mudita11 (our host), Dexy5 , UpTheStanley , Oldgirlruns , linda9389 and JonathanP in Southampton.
The first people I met were Damien and Oisin who were as lost as I was! I didn’t recognise it from last time I was here, but we did eventually find the gang by the cafe as planned. Of course it was time for a photo op, and I do need to mention that Damien got a special loudspeaker shoutout for dropping his barcode! He sheepishly went to claim it - we may or may not have had a chuckle at that! 😅
I’d already decided to walk today as I wanted to bring 12 year old Flossie to see her friends, so OGR, Mudita and I had a lovely park chat all the way round! 🥰
Brekkie followed, then we went our separate ways, all with big grins on our faces. Some people may think me loopy for making a 4+ hour round trip to walk 5k. Maybe they’re right, but it was fab and I’d do it all again to see my wonderful chums! ❤️
Thank you so much. It was so lovely to see you and Flossie again. Flossie is an incredible doggie. Still like a puppy at her age. Everyone had a good giggle over my barcode. Thankfully I was not too worried as I had my parkrun barcode on my wrist strap. But I was so impresssed that out of a crowd of 1031 that someone found it and handed in to the volunteers. How cool was that. Runners really are the best of people.
Well it had to be done didn’t it? As soon as you mentioned needing a ‘south’ for your compass bingo challenge, it was meet-up time! Southampton was a good choice, I’m not sure what we’d have done if you’d chosen Southport or Southwold! It was so good to meet you and to catch up with Cheekychipmunks (and Flossie-dog), Mudita11, UpTheStanley, Dexy5, JonathanP, Linda9389 again. My knee meant I was walking anyway but it was good to be joined by Cheekychipmunks, Flossie and Mudita who had decided to save her running for the Vitality 10K in London tomorrow. There was much chatting to be done as we walked but we did run over the finish line in a time of 56:22. It was good to see everyone waiting for us so that we could walk to the cafe where Mudita had booked a table with the added bonus that MrM could join us as well. I was content to come in at 1023 out of 1031 runners but I’m used to being at the back - someone has to be and I just enjoy the occasion! It’s a beautiful location isn’t it, you wouldn’t know you were in the middle of the city. An excellent morning and it was brilliant to meet you both, thank you for coming!
It was an amazing experience. Such a large crowd, however so professional and well organised. Everyone was so brilliant, great atmosphere and so great to meet you all. I’m so grateful to have met you all. I also loved the post parkrun breakfast. My porridge was the nicest porridge I’ve ever had.
As others have said, it was a great meet-up at Southampton this morning. I was a little anxious about my run as the ankle niggle I'd noticed last weekend seemed to be worse after parkrun, so I'd decided to give it a rest and hence hadn't run this week. However I certainly wasn't going to miss this one!
I started off at a steady pace and tried to maintain that throughout, watching for any possible hazards that might aggravate the ankle. Although a little sore initially, that seemed to go after the first 2k, so as the last 1.5k or so was a gentle downhill, I felt confident enough to increase my pace a bit. To my surprise, my time was 31.46, 3 seconds faster than last week and continuing my slow journey towards sub 31 and eventually sub 30 - bonus!
The irony that Damien was in England and I’m in Ireland 🥴 However, as luck would have it, I found myself just 10 minutes drive from the campsite to Clonbur Woods parkrun in Connemara 😈 An extremely friendly team and a beautiful run on woodland trails (my 3rd successive 100% off road parkrun). A fairly flat route, out and back with a loop in the middle and a time of just over 36 minutes, because I kept stopping to take photos, but I came in the top half of finishers for the first time ever (25/55 runners - a bit different from Southampton 😳) and first in my age category out of 5 🥳🥳 I had also bumped into a couple of guys from Devon who were on the same campsite (age cats 80-84 and 75-79, in training for Cardiff HM 👏👏) so was chatting to them on the way round. A fab morning 😃
Thank you ☺️ It was a really lovely course and definitely worth it if you are ever in that area. Galway today, but currently pouring down - first rain for a week 😳
Hi Damien, completed my 9th parkrun today, finished in 26:42, very pleased with that time. Not much else to report this week, numbers were down again this week but that could be down to the weather 🌧️🤷♂️, while my wife spent the week in Rathmolyon visiting our new granddaughter and apparently enjoyed really tidy weather 🌞🌞 some people have all the luck😁
Great finish time and very well done. Whenever you are going to Rathmolyon again over a weekend let me know. You could run at either Navan parkrun or Porchfields parkrun in Trim. I could pop along and have a post parkrun coffee with you.
Very well done. I was recently listening to With me now, parkrun podcast and one of the presenters had recently ran at Eden Project parkrun. She is a serious parkrun tourist and has done hundreds of different parkrun events. She said that Eden project parkrun was definitely in her top 3 favourite parkrun events.
Very well done for Volunteering. I was on the IC for months at one stage many years ago after I injured my back. I really regret not volunteering every week during that time.
Unfortunately my mobility is increasingly suffering the impact of chemo induced peripheral neuropathy, so I didn’t feel I could join you all at Southampton. I volunteered at home, timekeeping as usual. All went well except for a late starter who spent some time harassing us about his “need” to have his result adjusted to reflect his actual running time. My health issues mean I sit on a stool to timekeep, he was behind me, and started repeatedly prodding me in the back when I didn’t turn round to talk to him. All whilst we were of course recording the arriving finishers. What an idiot.
It’s not easy for you at the moment Coddfish but I know the Southsea parkrun regulars appreciate how much you volunteer so that they can run. There always has to be one idiot and I’m pretty sure you and your co-time keeper gave him short shrift but incidents like that do take the shine off a bit.
What an absolute idiot indeed. He was a late starter, end of story. It's not an official race. I would have gone one further and not given him any finish time as a result of his ridiculous carry on. Take your time or get lost. But thankfully idiots like that are very much so in the minority. Well done you for volunteering. Pity we missed you in Southampton. I wish you every best on your journey through chemo. I wish you all the very best and I wish you a good recovery with a return to full health again soon.
I think if we had known who he was, we might have had him removed from the results. It’s a long time since I had chemo, thanks, I am just still suffering from various after effects from my treatment “journey”. Glad you all had a good time in Southampton.
Southampton was lovely. I'm so used to going to small parkrun events here in Ireland. I've never been to an event with so many runners, joggers and walkers before. But somehow it didn't feel overly large, very well managed by the volunteer team and everyone there was great. Beautiful City park too. It was a bonding weekend for myself and my 15 year old Son. He is going through that awkward rebellious stage at the moment. So it was great to have 3 days away with him where we talked, hung out and had fun.
Yes I have a good friend who lives in Watford. I am going to make a plan to visit him next year and get Bushy ticked off my list. He has a Pizza oven. I'll bring the beer. 😀He said he will drive me there and do it himself too.
That is inexcusable behaviour Coddfish , and really should have been noticed by the Funnel Manager or RD and taken away from the finish line. Time keeping needs full concentration without having to put up with that. It’s not as if you could make those changes , even if you wanted to. Thankfully there are more lovely people at parkrun than people like him. We are so glad to see you volunteering when you can.
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