parkrun #462 – 8th April 2018
Stories from the park
The great news is that a couple of spring-like days meant that the blossom was coming out on the trees and the mud was much less than last week!
This week’s field of 623 finishers had 63 first-timers and 42 different clubs represented. There was a large contingent of visitors from Marlow Striders who clearly all had a great time – thank you for visiting! And our first male finisher had come all the way from Bristol in order to do some training for the English Road Running National Relay competition up in Birmingham next weekend, but had forgotten his barcode! #DFYB! Our next finisher was our female course record holder, Pippa Woolven from Wycombe Phoenix Harriers & AC in an impressive 17:19 (just 12 secs slower than her record).
Celebrations all round!
With the wonderful team of pacers out there an amazing 105 people recorded Personal Bests – that is 17% of all runners – wow!! As barcode scanner, I saw first-hand the delight as these people finished and regained their breath! The good news is that the course will get faster as it dries out more – so even more to come with pacers on the first Saturday of every month.
It is worth taking a moment to thank the fabulous pacers – many people commented on how encouraging and supportive they are. And their precision in terms of coming in on time was very impressive indeed – as you can see by scrolling down the results page. Thank you – top job!
We also congratulate new members of the parkrun milestone clubs:
10 Club – Abdulhameed NEIOUKH
50 Club – Ian GILHAM, Amanda KEEN, Louise DIGGENS, Robert GILL, Chris WILSON
100 Club – Simon SLATTERY, Russell COOK
250 Club – Michael DYER
As many of you know, there is a tradition of cakes for milestones – and Amanda Keen had surpassed herself with Kale & Apple Cake (yum) as well as a traditional sponge iced with the red 50 T-shirt and green holly leaves. Many of her friends from Burnham Joggers and parkrun and triathlons were there to help with the celebrations and cake!
Today Amanda was running as a VI-guide with Andrew Jones, who is currently working back to get under 25 mins after some injuries. Amanda started guide-running through parkrun and says how much it has enriched her own running; when guiding, it is a very close and trusting bond between the two of you, and the guide has to say everything that is coming up and that makes you both experience the details of the run more intensely. For most people their single biggest fear of becoming a guide-runner is that they would not be able to prevent a fall. Amanda has never experienced that issue, and indeed had a story of how Andrew had held her up one week when she caught her foot!
She also talked about the challenge at the start when it is busy – she likes to start a little further up the field, as it is easier for other runners to overtake the two of them, than it is for her to find a safe and wide-enough route for the two of them to pass. Her biggest challenges are people with headphones who cannot hear her call out, and people who run in front and then slow or stop suddenly.
We currently have 3 VI runners at Black Park – around 25-28 mins, 32-35 mins and 45-55 mins respectively. If you would be happy to guide, please drop an email to black-parkoffice@parkrun.com and we would love to add you to the rota.
If you would like to understand more and go on the official England Athletics course to gain more experience and register, then this is the link: https://www.englandathletics.org/disability-athletics/get-involved/sight-loss-awareness-and-guide-running-workshop
Today’s parkrun was all made possible by 59 volunteers – a big cheer for them:
Barbara ALLEN • Mark LUCAS • David PRIDDY • Fred ASHFORD • Glyn WATKINS • Jenny ZAREMBA • Mary LORD • Andy TORRANCE • Steve PARSONS • Joe NOLAN • Rose O'NEILL • Stephen MCALISTER • Antony SMITH • Chris ZAREMBA • Laura HAWKINS • Zoe SMITH • Freya SMITH • Kenneth BROWN • Bob STANBROOK • Diane KENDALL • Karen ALOE • Steve WELLS • Mantej DHATT • Karen TRUNKFIELD • Karen Anne PATTERSON • Tim DAWSON • Joanna MORIARTY • Rob LOWE • Oonagh THOMPSON • Joanne HARRISON • Minnie CROSS • Gary HOOK • Ian SEARS • Suzy GAULTON • John MILES • Michael PRICE • Fiona JAMIESON • David ROSS • Audrey PARSONS • Mitch KERBY • George MARDALL • Toby ROBINSON • Nigel WRIGHT • Ken PHILLIPS • Ben ROBINSON • James ROBINSON • Abigail MORIARTY • Amanda KEEN • Janett BAKER • Kathryn FROST • Mairi VODDEN • Sam PHILLIPS • Holly PHILLIPS • Anthony VODDEN • Ollie STRIDE • Yestin LINTON-SMITH • Marie KOUHI • Mary PALMER • Jaskaran Singh SALL
Thank you to George for the beautiful photos – these are already on the Flickr group, which can be accessed via the photo link on the Black Park parkrun page or via this link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gmardall/sets
Achievements this week
There were some age graded results that deserved a huge cheer:
- Pippa Woolven (SW20-24) of Wycombe Phoenix Harriers & AC (our female course record holder from her 2104 run) recorded 85.5% age grading today
- Catherine Staunton (VW60-64) of Chiltern Harriers and Margaret Mardall (VW70-74) both recorded 79.1%
- Dawn Godwin (VW45-49) of Windle Valley Runners recorded 79.0% age grading on her first parkrun at Black Park
- Ida Burrows (JW15-17) of Thames Valley Triathletes recorded 78.7% on her first parkrun at Black Park
- Ian Gilham (VM55-59) of Eton Tri recorded 77.2% on his 50th parkrun
- Maureen Pedri (VW60-64) of the Running Sisters Network recorded 76.8%
- John Smith (VM75-79) recorded 76.5%
- Ben Robinson (JM11-14) of Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme recorded 76.1% with a PB on his 4th run
- Simon O’Neill (VM50-54) of Marlow Striders and Guy Woolett (VM45-49) of Gade Valley Harriers both recorded 75.6% age grading.
Although the amazing Margaret Moody still holds the course record of 92.5% set back in April 2014.
I also felt the need to pick out a few Aesthetically Pleasing Finishing Times:
- Derek Shaw with 23:23 – a new PB at his 52nd parkrun!
- Edward Harris with 23:32 – a new PB at his 3rd parkrun!
- Michael Burnett of Hillingdon Triathletes with 25:25
- Tim Davies with 25:52
- Juan Crosby with 27:27 – a new PB at his 4th parkrun!
- Annabel Greatorex with 28:28
- Hannah Vose and Mark Digby – both from Burnham Joggers, with 29:29
- Linda Lord with 38:38
- Anthony Bruce with 40:40 on his very first parkrun ever!
Looking ahead
The good news is that our new team of Run Directors are being trained up under Dave’s watchful eye and have been loading the results successfully for the last couple of weeks, and understanding how each of the volunteer roles makes Black Park parkrun work so well.
We are always looking for people who are prepared to help in one of the volunteer roles. Please email black-parkhelpers@parkrun.com with the date(s) that you can help. They are easy to learn and the volunteers have great fun together, as well as a sense of satisfaction when all goes well (especially in the weeks where we do not lose any of the finisher tokens!!)
Finally, our group of run reporters always wants to bring to life some of the different experiences of different individuals and groups within Black Park parkrun. If you would like to tell a little of your personal story, please do email parkrunstories@yahoo.com and we will hopefully catch up with you at Black Park and feature your story.
Black Park parkrun started on 18th July 2009. Since then 16,178 participants have completed 168,891 parkruns covering a total distance of 844,455 km, including 27,072 new Personal Bests.