Bushy parkrun news

Sweatshop Monthly Prize January 2012

We are pleased to announce that this month's Sweatshop Monthly Prize winner is Federico A Witt

Congratulations to Federico!

We'd like to thank Sweatshop for their generosity and to congratulate Federico on his achievement. His prize is a new pair of running shoes fitted at the Teddington Sweatshop.

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http://twitter.com/sweatshoponline

Mon 01/30/2012

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Sweatshop Monthly Prize December 2011

We are pleased to announce that this month's Sweatshop Monthly Prize winner is William Joyce

Congratulations to William!

We'd like to thank Sweatshop for their generosity and to congratulate William on his achievement. His prize is a new pair of running shoes fitted at the Teddington Sweatshop.

http://www.sweatshop.co.uk
http://twitter.com/sweatshoponline

Tue 01/10/2012

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Race Report - Events 395, 28th January 2012

Points of View

It was all gloom, doom and despondency in the news this week. What with looming double dip recessions (forecast by the same people who didn’t see the first one coming), a possible new Ice Age (brought to you by those people who forecast the 2011 barbecue summer), and the England cricket team coming second in Dubai (brought to you by … the England cricket team).

This didn’t deter the parkrunners. At 9.00 on Saturday morning, 1,828 running shoes were pawing the turf by the Diana Fountain (supporting 914 sundry runners and the normal entourage of dogs, buggies and followers) waiting for those magical words “Timer – Are You Ready – GO” uttered by Ray Coward. The weather was perfect – cool, but not cold – and the going was soft to heavy. The volunteers on “volunteer ridge” clapped and cheered, the runners ran, the buggies rolled, and the dogs scampered.

The numbers were high yet again. I had thought that by this time, the post-New Year bulge might start to slacken off, with New Year’s Resolutions falling by the wayside. Not a bit of it – this was the second highest parkrun field. Ever. Despite the predicted freeze. Maybe parkrunners are a cheerier breed, and have found their weekly perambulation in the park with nearly a thousand like-minded souls gives a much needed break from the force-fed gloom and doom.

Just before the run, two more runners were formally inducted into the 250 club, and were given their well-earned black and gold running shirts. Mark Gratton and Simon Greenhill both completed their 251^st run on Saturday, and took their new kit home with them. Well done to both of you. All Simon’s runs have been at Bushy, and he started back in November 2005, while Mark’s had three away fixtures, and began his parkrun career slightly later, back in May 2006.

On the way round, at the “playground bend”, volunteer John Stevens brought a smile to everyone passing him by using a giant sponge hand to point the way. No excuse whatsoever for anyone taking a shortcut at this point. John, a 100-clubber, is currently sidelined through injury, and has been part of the parkrun family since July 2007.

Although the funnel backed up over the line for a time, from my perspective towards the end of the field, my main memory of Saturday’s event was a lot of cheery people, using the pause in the funnel as a chance for a breather and chat with fellow runners. Nobody seemed to mind the enforced wait. Some of the runners popped round to the side of the funnel to help the funnel management team as soon as they’d finished. The great parkrun mood was probably helped by the large number of PBs – but the area around the finish line and registration to me always seems to be a happy place to be.

Today’s run saw a first timer (Adam Clarke) come in first, in a time of 15:11, getting instant membership of the Sub-17 parkrun Club. Jenna Hill was first woman home on her tenth outing, with a time of 17:11.

Two runners finished at the exact field mid-point – Mansour Amirparviz and Simon Gallant – on 25:22. Both are relative newcomers to parkrun, with 7 and 10 runs to their names respectively. Mansour had his first recorded run in October 2011, and his times have been fairly consistent around his average of 25:28, with a spread from 24:42 to 26:16. Simon debuted in July 2010, with a time of 26:01, dropping to his PB of 23:18 on his last outing before today, back in July 2011.

Four men share honours of having the male mid-point time of 23:47. Colin White, William Boothby, David Woodroffe and Bob Anderson. Bob is a 100-clubber, with 120 runs under his belt, Colin is working towards his red 50-club shirt, with 30 recorded runs, while William and David have had just two recorded finishes.

As for the ladies, just one finished at the female mid-point. Well done, Charlotte Nossiter. Today was Charlotte’s first recorded parkrun. Hopefully, this will be the first of many visits.

For want of anything better to do, I was looking at the Points Table, and (sad to say), I found it fascinating reading. I know, I really must get out more.

The female points table has a slightly familiar look to it, with Simone Rapa in the lead with 4,557 points, tallied from her position in 18 runs, and 500 points from volunteering twice so far this season. Polly Adams is in second place, with 4,415 points, similarly from 18 runs, but playing a tactical game by saving her volunteering points until later in the year. A new name has appeared in third place – Brigid Hibberd, whose first parkrun was in July 2010 and this season has run 14 times and volunteered twice. Simone and Polly are both 100-clubbers, with Brigid five runs away from getting the red 50-club shirt.

If you play around with the points table (as, sad to say, I did), you can also see the ranking of who has run the most and who has volunteered the most (and least, but we’ll not mention that). At the top of the ladies volunteer table is Ann Coward on 16 this season. Volunteer coordinator extraordinaire, and wife of Ray Coward, Event Director (and thus making de facto Ann co-Event Director). Ann’s there almost every week (she does have the odd holiday) and is currently training for her second outing at the Virgin London Marathon.

In second place is Rachel Lonergan who, up until the final day last season, was looking likely to come third in the Female Points Table. Unfortunately (for her, not parkrun), she decided to play “let’s drop the furniture on my foot”, and broke her big toe. Since then, she has been a regular volunteer, and helped me to hand out tokens a couple of times (one of which was for the record breaking 1,000 field). Tracie Rice is in third place, by dint of alphabetical order. Tracie started her parkrun career in August 2008, but hasn’t run since February 2011. As she hasn’t had the misfortune to work alongside me when I’m on number duty, I’m not sure why she’s had this absence from running – but can only say that parkrun is extremely grateful.

The current leader of the ladies league table of the highest number of Bushy parkruns this season is the evergreen Madge Bradsell, with a total of 19 runs to her name this season, and 197 out of a possible 235 runs since starting with parkrun in September 2007. Madge’s best age grading this season is 73.57%. I know that it’s been said before, but running an average speed of 35:30 in the 75-79 Age Group in 19 out of a possible 20 runs makes Madge an inspiration to all of us. Since she started, her age graded percentage has been fairly consistent in the mid 70 percentages.

As for the boys, Mark Gratton is currently the clear leader for the points prize with 4,741 points all from running 20 times in Bushy this season. Mark’s best parkrun time this season is 18:26, with his best age grading standing at 70.52%. Mark also tops the table of numbers of runs this season, with a 100% attendance record.

Andrew Melbourne is following about a thousand points behind on 3,729 with 500 of those from volunteering twice, and the rest from 16 runs. Andrew is currently the holder of a red 50 Club shirt, with 71 parkruns under his belt, 68 of them at Bushy. Andrew’s best time this season is 18:55, and best age grading 69.28%.

Ciaran Murphy is sniffing at Andrew’s heels in the points table, with 3,737 points - 500 of those from volunteering twice, and the rest from 16 runs. Ciaran wears the black 100 Club shirt, with 229 parkruns (227 at Bushy) to his name. Not long to go until he dons the exclusive black and gold 250 shirt!

Heading the list of times volunteered in the male table is Simon Lane, having volunteered 16 times, and run once. Simon is one of the two current “timer-masters”, but has also helped out on other duties. He won volunteer of the year last year, and is also going to take a turn with the race report quill pen soon.

In second place, Ray Coward’s record implies that he has volunteered 15 times this year, covering the Race Director role. This does not take into consideration his sterling and time consuming behind the scenes work on event administration and, most important, arranging fine and dry weather for the parkrun hour each Saturday. Ray answers questions by email from parkrunners on a range of subjects, from position queries to chasing up taken tokens.

Just getting on the podium in Bronze position is Ray Franks, having volunteered 14 times this season. I’ll recuse myself from making any further comments, on the grounds of marital bias and thus potential prejudice.

The volunteers on Saturday did an excellent job. Nearly 1,000 runners turned up, ran in a beautiful park, had a great time and went home happy. They had their result around mid-day. At no cost. Without chip timing. Only possible because a number of volunteers gave up their time to help, as well as the nameless runners who mucked in as soon as they had finished. Thanks to all of them. You all know who you are.

Don’t forget to volunteer yourself sometime. If you don’t want to give up your run, there are other ways you can help out. Most importantly, please help fellow runners during the event. If someone looks a bit lost, talk to them. You can tell them how parkrun works, and help them through registration. Don’t forget to make sure they put their token on the table! (Two taken this week - 837 and 736 – please come home!) If someone immediately in front of you leaves the funnel, take their token for them at the end of the funnel (if you see a funnel manager, tell them what you’re doing – but with the number of runners going through the funnel, they may miss “escapees”). Runners leave the funnel for various reasons – being unwell, or just through not understanding how the system works (simple - two feet past the timer, two feet get a token). You can offer to look after the kit one week. You can help out sorting tokens onto the pins. Or you can even have a go at writing the report.

Next week, I’m back handing out tokens, and Andy Wingate has control of the parkrun quill pen. Hope you enjoy your week – and ignore the gloomy predictions. They don’t have the greatest record of accuracy!

Jan F

Special Plaudits

This was the 200^th parkrun for Stuart Lodge (180 at Bushy)

This was the 100^th parkrun for Alex Gill (all at Bushy), Paul Rostern (99) and Alison Todd (99).

Bubbling under . . . Sue Graham-Kahn and Rory Waddell each need one more for 150. Jennifer Joyce needs one more for 100.

Two runners completed their 50^th parkruns: Lou Coaker and Daniel Etheridge.

There were notable PBs by: Malcolm Taylor (in his 166^th Bushy run), Richard Barker (131^st), Christian Harper (90^th), Federico Witt (84^th), Josh Smith (67^th), Tom Higgins (66^th), Philip True (63^rd), Tony Chapman (60^th), Eva Boyd (57^th), Charly Thursfield (54^th) and Katrin Koschinski (51^st).

Results Summary

	Male Field
1	Adam Clarke	Aldershot, Farnham & District AC	15:11
2	Jordan Stokes	St Mary’s University College AC	16:10
3	Justin West	Stragglers	16:33
	Female Field
1	Jenna Hill	St Mary’s University College AC	17:18
2	Sophia Saller	Optima Racing Team	18:56
3	Emily Hogg	Thames Hare & Hounds	19:18
	Junior Males
1	Jordan Stokes	St Mary’s University College AC	16:10
2	Rory Atkins	Optima Racing Team	16:48
3	Luke Penney	St Mary’s Richmond AC	17:31
	Junior Females
1	Sophia Saller	Optima Racing Team	18:56
2	Harriet Johnson		20:44
3	Alice Hewitt	St Mary’s Richmond AC	21:07
	Age Graded Percentages
1	Jane Davies (VW60-64)	Epsom & Ewell Harriers	93.67%
2	Adam Clarke (SM20-24)	Aldershot, Farnham & District AC	85.84%
3	Jenna Hill (SW25-29)	St Mary’s University College AC	85.55%

Stats Summary


No of Finishers / % “Unknown”	914 / 8% *Bushy’s second largest field*
Finishers/minute 20:xx-29:xx	68 per minute for that 10 mins
Finishers/minute 23:xx-27:xx	72 per minute for that 5 mins
% finished in 23:xx-27:xx	40% of total field
Most finishers in a minute	88 in 23:xx

Bushy first timers	78 (9% of identified field)
Male / Female split	66% M / 34% F
Junior runners	153 (18% of identified field)
Age 60-plus runners	40 (5% of identified field)
50+ parkruns completed	244 (29% of identified field)

PBs	168 (20%of identified field)
Sub 20-minute finishers	78 (9% of total field)
30-minute plus finishers	161 (18% of total field)
Overall/male/female mid-points	25:22 / 23:47 / 28:28
Overall/male/female deciles	20:19 / 19:43 / 22:55

Position tokens missing	two

Don't forget you can now follow us on Twitter at
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and for parkrun on facebook at
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Still want more? . . . then listen to ‘the parkrun show’ podcast – out every Monday

www.facebook.com/theparkrunshow

And the link for the JustGiving site for the Royal Parks Foundation is:

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Want to give feedback? Have anything to say or want anyone mentioned in future race reports? Please e-mail bushyoffice@parkrun.com

Sun 01/29/2012

RATING: COMMENTS (5)

Race Report - Event 394, 21st January 2012

The Stats Fest Edition

Let’s start with a quiz. So what do the Bushy parkrun of 7^th January (the day of a thousand runners) and the design of the Chicago Spire have in common? Easy. They both had two thousand feet. It must be said, however, that the height of the proposed spire was probably not to be augmented by quite a few paws and random sets of buggy wheels. And, of course, unlike the Chicago Spire, our parkrun was actually completed.

Oh well, that’s as good as this report is going to get. It’s going to be a hard job following Andy W’s blockbusting epics from the last few weeks so I am retreating in this missive into a mass of statistics from 2011. Although that already seems a long time ago

There was no photogenic frost on Saturday but it had been replaced by a blustery wind which was threatening to make things difficult around the more exposed parts of the course. Even so, there were one hundred PBs out of the field of “only” 864.

Yes, in 2012-speak, “only” 864 is regarded as a small field, in fact our lowest of the year so far, disregarding the rather atypical New Year’s Day event. It did, however, equal our third highest Bushy attendance and gave us another good test of our new “Double Funnel” implementation.

And, Speaking of the “Double Funnel” . . .

With the experience gained from last week’s test, the double funnel was extended this week more or less to the point at which the tokens were handed out. With the excellent Funnel team briefed and ably led by Lou Coaker it ran smoothly once more, with Lou at the sharp end of affairs opening and closing the two channels. Lou’s experience and authority at the head of the Funnel has been a real asset to our parkrun for some time, never more so than with our thousand runners a couple of weeks back. Having been on Timer that day (as I was on Saturday), I have particular reason to be grateful to her!

We are all needing to get used to the double funnel, and remember that goes for Funnel Volunteers as well as Runners, and I will repeat here the acknowledgement to Peter Smith for his work on the design and his assistance in ensuring a smooth introduction.

Effectively we are more or less doubling the Funnel’s length, but retaining the ability to control movement, integrity etc within a manageable distance. Nobody has to wait any longer for a token than they would have done in a single funnel and there is also a chance of a rest and a chat for those who appreciate such things at the end of 5K.

The problem being tackled is not so much the size of the field as its density. For example, on Saturday, there was an average of about 76 finishers per minute in the six minutes 22:xx to 27:xx – that’s about five finishers every four seconds for a continuous six minute period. More than half the field finished in that six minute spell!

It occurs to me that there is another solution. If, say, half of those who finish in the 22:xx to 24:xx period speeded up by about five minutes and half of the 25:xx to 27:xx finishers slowed down by five minutes then the field would be much more evenly spread. Give it some thought for next Saturday . . . you know it makes sense.

The Results Bit

There is a well-known ancient saying in the world of athletics which goes something like this: “If the sun rises on a Saturday when Andrew Lawrence (Morpeth Harriers & AC) runs at Bushy, then the rest of the field will surely be behind him”. Actually, I have just made that up – the bit about the saying, I mean. But it is the case that Andrew has now run seven times at Bushy and has finished first on each occasion. His first six victories came in a two month spell last summer.

Mind you, this one was close. Andrew’s time was 16:31 and, hot on his heels, was another frequent Bushy winner in the form of Will Cockerell (Belgrave Harriers) with 16:34. A twenty second gap followed before Matthew Sharp (Hercules Wimbledon AC) crossed the line in 16:54 to complete the day’s sub-seventeen minute men.

A junior runner (JW15-19) led the day’s Female field. Eliza Cottington (Thames Turbo Triathlon) has clocked up forty Bushy appearances since 2007 and her 20:29 on Saturday, just six seconds outside her PB, provided her first victory. Lisa Crow, in only her second Bushy run, followed in 20:52. A trio of sub-twenty one minute women was completed by Bushy stalwart Polly Adams with 20:59.

In the day’s Junior Males, the leading seven runners all finished with a time of 19:xx. The first of these was Sathira Don (St Mary’s Richmond AC) with 19:01, beating Fergus Darlow by three seconds. They were followed in quick succession by Robert Eveson, 100-Clubber William Round and Patrick Goffey (St Mary’s Richmond AC).

For Junior Females, next in line after Eliza Cottington was Jessica Nicholls-Mindlin (St Mary’s Richmond AC) with a PB of 22:00. Isobel Chant (Thames Turbo Triathlon) took the third spot with 22:20, just pipping Jenny Miles (Kingston AC & Polytechnic Harriers).

Just three 80%-plus age gradings this week - Mike Trees (VM45-49) with 83.46%, Will Cockerell (SM35-39) 81.19% and David Symons (VM40-44) 80.27%. And topping the age-grade charts for the females was Liz Zass (VW65-69) with 78.86%.

The Stats Bit

How Many?

There were 864 finishers, 793 of whom registered their result, leaving 71 as “Unknown” (8%)
There was an average of 75 finishers per minute in the five minute period 23:xx to 27:xx . . .
. . . 43% of the field finished in this period
There were 88 finishers in the minute 23:xx, 79 in 22:xx and 76 in 26:xx

Who Were They?

There were 55 Bushy First Timers (7% of identified runners) . . .
. . . of whom 47 were parkrun First Timers (6%)
67% of the field was male, 33% female.
There were 124 Junior (under 20) runners (16%) and 43 runners age 60 or over (5%)
The predominant age group for men (SM/VM) was 45-49 (22%) and also for women (SW/VW) (21%)
There were 235 runners (30% of the identified field) with 50 or more parkruns completed (not necessarily all at Bushy)

How Fast?

There were 100 PBs (about 13% of identified runners).
There were 50 finishers in under 20 minutes (6% of the total field) and 189 in 30 minutes or over (22%)
The overall / male / female mid-point times were 25:55 / 24:09 / 29:08
The overall / male / female top decile (top 10%) times were 20:53 / 20:09 / 23:58

Token Taker Tally

Tokens gone missing this week . . . three.

The Special Plaudits Bit

Two runners completed their 250^th parkruns: Simon Greenhill (249 at Bushy – and a PB as well!) and Mark Gratton (247 – 2010 Male Points prize champion and current leader).

This was the 150^th parkrun for Duncan Grant (all at Bushy) and Ted Fraser (138).

This was the 100^th parkrun for Neville Taylor (all at Bushy) and Wendy Robertson (also all at Bushy).

Bubbling under . . . Peter Filmer and Alison Todd each need one more for 100.

Eight runners completed their 50^th parkruns: Angus Effemey, Colin Dinwoodie, Morgan Kelly, Katrin Kroschinski, Tim Hester, Fred Rickaby, David Klein and Trevor Huggins.

There were notable PBs by: Simon Greenhill (a very notable PB - in his 249^th Bushy run), James Hoppe (78^th) and Charly Thursfield (53^rd).

Obscure Statistic #1 . . . The Longest One Hundred?

Last April, I brought you the following scintillating item of news:

“Andrew Lane, one of the original thirteen parkrunners,was awarded his 100-Club shirt on Saturday – Andrew mentioned to me after Saturday’s run that he must be the current holder of the “Longest Elapsed Time To Complete 100 parkruns” record. Please don’t ask me who held it prior to Andrew.

He is, of course, correct. Just to set it in the record books, I make his elapsed time to be: 2,388 days or 6 years, 6 months and 15 days. Coincidentally, that’s not far off my best half-marathon time.”

Well, as recently reported by Andy W, parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt completed his 100^th parkrun on New Year’s Day, giving him an elapsed time of 2,557 days or 7 years and 1 day. A new record, I submit, unless anyone knows better.

This record is, of course, there to be beaten. In fact, with due modesty, I am well in with a chance. Saturday marked the fourth anniversary of my first Bushy run, back in January 2008. And yet I am still a few short of my fiftieth parkrun, although I have volunteered on a couple of occasions in that period. Less than halfway in four years? – beating seven years should be easy.

Obscure Statistic #2 . . . Family Fortunes?

Some time ago I wrote about Mike Trees and his son Tommy possibly holding the Bushy record for the highest placed father-son combination. Well, I hesitate to say this without validation, but Mike may also be in line for the highest placed husband-wife combination. Mike was the sixth male across the line on Saturday and his wife Rieko Trees was the fourth female, giving a combined position of ten. Put a comment down below if you think you know better.

2011 – A Year In Retrospect

Remember 2011? That’s right – it was the year when we were talking about maybe getting up to a thousand runners at some time in the distant future. And the term “double funnel” merely conjured up visions of a large ship on the ocean.

Having very little better to do with my time, I have compiled some really “interesting” facts about our parkrun in 2011. You may find that reading them helps with your insomnia.

Basic Numbers for 2011:

· There were 54 parkruns in the year (53 Saturdays plus Christmas Day), with a total of 37,381 runners

· . . . giving an average field of 692 and a total distance covered of 186,905 km (or about 116,000 miles)

· There were five 800-plus fields . . .

· . . . with the largest field of 864 on 3^rd September (a Bushy record at that point)

· The lowest field was 367 on 1^st January (a Saturday) and then 460 on 19^th February

· Highest % of Bushy first-timers . . . 15.3% on 10^th December (which included a mob match)

· Highest % of Juniors . . . 25.1% on 15^th October

· Highest % of age 60-plus . . . 8.2% on Christmas Day! (glad to get out of the house, maybe?)

· Highest male-to-female ratio . . . 2.55 on 12^th February

· . . . lowest male-to-female ratio . . . 1.58 on 8^th October (just maybe influenced by England-France rugby World Cup QF that morning)

· Highest number of finishers in a single minute . . . 86 in minute 23:xx on 11^th June

· Highest average finishers/minute in the 5 minutes 23:xx to 27:xx . . . 72.6 on 3^rd September

Performances in 2011:

· Fastest Male . . . Andrew Baddeley with 14:26 on December 31^st (Paul Pollock’s 14:33 had been the fastest until being pipped on the last day of the year)

· Fastest Female . . . Justina Heslop with a record-breaking 15:58 on 22^nd October

· Slowest time for a winning Male / Female . . . 17:59 / 21:27

· Fastest Junior Male . . . John McDonnell (JM15-19) with 14:58 on 2^nd April

· Fastest Junior Female . . . Ruth Haynes (JW15-19) with 18:26 on 26^th February

· Slowest time for a winning Junior Male / Female . . . 20:05 / 26:04

· Highest age-grade % . . . 94.03% by Jane Davies (VW60-64) on Christmas Day

· Fastest field (measured by mid-point) . . . 24:14 on 10^th December (mob match day again)

· . . . and slowest field . . . 26:32 on 15^th January

· Eleven Bushy age category records were set in 2011.

· Highest % of field at sub-20 minutes . . . 14.3% on 10^th December

· Highest % of field at 30-plus minutes . . . 25.8% on 15^th January

· Highest % of PBs . . . 26% on 9^th April (a Pacer day). In fact the top three percentages recorded were on Pacer days.

Some notable females of 2011:

· Bushy female record setter (and currently the fastest female parkrunner anytime, anywhere) . . . Justina Heslop

· The “so near” award . . . Gemma Turtle (three determined efforts at the then Bushy record of 16:11 – just seconds away each time)

· The “best presenter of awards” award . . . Charlotte Purdue (who also ran in September), who went straight from Bushy’s seventh birthday awards to finish second in the BUPA Great Edinburgh Run 10K

· First female parkrun 250 Club Member . . . Kirsty Bangham (has anyone mentioned this before?)

· First Bushy runner in the VW80-84 age category . . . Margaret Massie-Taylor

· And the ladies on 9^th April who formed 50% of that month’s Pacers, the highest female representation to date . . . Ramona Thevenet-Smith, Sarah Vaughan and Janice Franks. And, if you are paying attention (as unlikely as that may be), you will have noted that this was the day with highest percentage of PBs in 2011.

And here are some more that I have made up:

· Weather controller of the year . . . Ray Coward – for keeping us all dry throughout 2011. Although I know for a fact that Ann Coward does most of the behind-the-scenes work.

· Most promising race reporter . . . Harry Matthews (JM14) – a great race report on 19^th November

· Race reporter of the year . . . Andy Wingate – what a star!

· Most enthusiastic starter . . . Yappy Dog – always makes us smile

· Most determined finisher . . . Sally Willis – inspiring

· “May your toast always fall butter side down” award . . . anyone who took away one of our position tokens and did not return it.

And, not least:

· Volunteers of 2011 . . . all of them. Fifty four parkruns for nearly forty thousand runners in 2011 would not have happened without them. Awesome. Were you one of them?

I could go on (but please don’t feel that you have to, I hear). OK. That’s enough then.

Of course, 2012 has already seen some of the above figures topped – including largest field and most finishers in a single minute. And we’re still only in January! Time to lie down, I think.

And Finally . . . At the Back of the Pack

Andy W’s entertaining piece on age grading percentages last week (his report is below this one if you have not yet read it) reminded me that one of the many advantages of parkrun is that you can actually feel good about getting older. As somebody once said: “Age is all in the mind; the trick is to keep it from creeping down your body”.

In fact Andy’s tongue-in-cheek summary of what he would need to do to gain a mention in the 80%-plus plaudits provided a really good explanation of the age grading principle. And, as he so neatly put it, to get yourself above 80% you need simply to get faster, or to get older.

The 80% level is an arbitrary one selected by me for reporting each week as normally only about half a dozen or so achieve it. That lends itself to bite-size reporting and it also enables a cross-section from the field to be mentioned rather than just the day’s leaders.

As for Andy’s comment about me grudgingly reporting his envisaged 80%-plus achievement in the year 2042 – well, Andy, I have some bad news for you. Having deployed some simple vector autoregression modelling, and overlaying forecast global inflationary forces, I predict that the 80% reporting level will have risen to 91.6538% in thirty years’ time. So there.

Ray F

Don't forget you can now follow us on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/bushyparkrun
and for parkrun on facebook at
www.facebook.com/parkrun
and for Bushy parkrun on facebook
www.facebook.com/bushyparkrun

Still want more? . . . then listen to ‘the parkrun show’ podcast – out every Monday

www.facebook.com/theparkrunshow

And the link for the JustGiving site for the Royal Parks Foundation is:

JustGiving

Want to give feedback? Have anything to say or want anyone mentioned in future race reports? Please e-mail bushyoffice@parkrun.com

Sun 01/22/2012

RATING: COMMENTS (10)

Race Report - Event 393 – 14th January 2012

One man and his dog comes to Bushy Park

This Saturday, as I turned into the carpark to a glorious looking Bushy Park, I wondered how big the field would be after our incredible 1,000 last week. A heavy hoar frost accompanied by the sun trying to peak through a thick fog created a truly beautiful morning, although extra layers were the order of the day and the drivers among us will not have enjoyed the pre-run ritual of scraping ice of their windscreens – another reason to cycle. In the end the chilly conditions may have contributed to a drop in numbers, but the 899 runners saw Bushy parkrun record the second highest ever field and makes it easy to predict another year of growing popularity for parkrun at least in one corner of South West London.

The run itself, was the usual impressive affair with Anthony Jackson (16:10) again taking the victory. It was his 5^th win in his last 10 parkruns, his 11^th overall and so he has continued his amazing start to 2012 - 3 victories out of his 4 runs, including 2 in his 3 runs on NYD. His 10 wins at Bushy (he also won at Banstead Woods) puts him 8^th on list of men with the most Bushy victories, and with his current great form I wouldn’t bet against him moving up this list. David Symons is only one ahead on 11 victories and is more recently running at Wimbledon Common – similarly his next target, Jimmy Goulis, who has a record of 14 Bushy wins is unlikely to add to his tally here as he is merrily recording more parkrun victories in Melbourne, Australia.

The athletes with the most victories at Bushy are currently James Trapmore (18) and Sonia O’Sullivan (16), but this must be a reasonable target for Anthony if he can continue his sparkling good form!

This week however, Anthony was pushed all the way to the line with George Corcoran (16:11) just one second behind. Third home was Jamie Hinton in 16:35. Well done to both George and Jamie on their new PBs.

The ladies were led home by Kate Brown who recorded a new PB on her way to a 17:44 finish. Second place went to Eleanor Matthews in 18:30 and third to Bushy regular Polly Adams in 21:04.

The Junior field saw George Corcoran (16:11) record the fastest time, followed Aaron Farr (18:54) and Fergus Darlow (18:57), with the girls led home by Jenny Miles (21:36), Libby Brown (22:05) and Zoe Cramp (22:06). Well done to Fergus, Libby and Zoe who also got new PBs.

Pacing performance

We also had pacers this week and thank you as usual goes to these guys who were yet again deadly accurate – John Harrison-Church, Pedro Das Gupta, Matthew Boyles, Hayden Matthews, Kevin Stone and Chris Tyrell. This week the ‘Carol Dickinson Award’ for metronomic accuracy goes to Pedro who hit his 22 minute mark on the button!

Celebrating 80%

This week we had two Age Graded performances of over 80% with overall second placed man and junior winner George Corcoran achieving 82.39% and ladies winner Kate Brown on 83.46%.

In these Race Reports we have always (well usually at least) included a special mention for anyone who achieves an 80%+ rating. But how good is 80%t? Well, if I wanted to get a similar mention, I noticed that I have two choices 1. Get quicker or 2. Get older! Assuming I am giving up on the idea of lowering my current PB of 20:34 by over 4 minutes and hitting 16:05 then my only choice is getting older – which fortunately is quite easy! However, to give myself a grading above the threshold, I need to be holding my running form for the next three decades and then when I tick over to 66 in May 2042, I can use my bus pass to get to the park and see if I can hit 20:34 again. If I manage that and Ray Franks doesn’t give me a mention in the Race Report then I can justifiably be a bit grumpy – which I probably will be by then -I imagine the youth of 2042 will have no respect, dress ridiculously and their music will just be noise!

Although, looking positively, if I continue at my current rate (I think I ran 38 parkruns in 2011) then maybe I can time my 80% grading to coincide with my entry into the exclusive 1,250 Club – I wonder what colour the top will be? Hopefully grey, so it matches my hair – assuming I still have any!

As a little aside, I would have to wait a further 13 years until 2055 and my 79^th birthday to hope to match the record holder, Jane Davies, with her incredible 96.24% grading – some people are just a different class!

Special Plaudits

176 runners recorded a PB this week, but ten of them have done 50 laps of Bushy Park or more

Well done to Alex Williamson (in his 196th parkrun), Malcolm Dickson (150^th), Ian Haylock (130^th), Jon Round (92^nd), Steve Todd (81^st), Sarah Fraser (78^th), Libby Brown (66^th), Richard Patient (62^nd) and Kirsty Kothakota (53^rd). A special congratulation goes to Rebecca Bevan, who celebrated her entry into the 50 Club in the best way possible with a 37 second PB. Well done Rebecca!

This week, we saw Ross Whitehead, Dave Wright and Dave Hall run their 100^th parkrun and Shauna Moran and John Lunt joined Rebecca Bevan in reaching their half century. Well done to all of you.

We also saw a number of athletes just one run away from entry into one of the parkrun clubs, including Mark Gratton who ran his 249^th parkrun this week.

Fixing an oversight

Entering one of the parkrun clubs is great and pulling on your new white, red or black T-shirt is a lovely feeling. You have worked hard and the recognition is well deserved.

So, I have an apology to make. When writing the New Year’s report, there was a lot to talk about - two Bushy runs, the NYD triple and celebrating the first lady into the 250 Club. However, it meant that some of the usual stuff was missing, so…

On NYE, Ralph Blackbourn, Rob Phillips, David Hawkins, Caroline Hall and Lyndsey Gardner all ran their 50^th parkrun, with Christopher Johnson and Karen Whapshott-Downer both entering the 100 Club.

And on NYD, Jane Calderbank and Carl Furness both reached the 50 run milestone!

Rob Phillips, who was one of the 50 clubbers from New Year, has an impressive parkrun record. A PB of 17:29 shows quite some pedigree and alongside the 48 laps of Bushy Park, he has also done 3 other events with second places at both Medina on the Isle of Wight and the hills of Richmond Park, and a brilliant victory at Bedfont Lakes. His best place at Bushy has been 8^th about 18months ago, but he is just one of the many amazing runners who show what an incredible standard we are lucky enough to see at Bushy every week. Whilst Andy Baddeley and Charlotte Purdue aim for course records and people like Anthony Jackson records a number of wins, there are many amazing athletes who are just a few seconds behind and don’t get the mentions!

A new funnel system

Anyone who finished last week’s run between around 23 minutes and 30 minutes will have seen the fact that the huge 1,000 strong field caused the funnel to be overrun with runners giving the funnel team a tough time coping with it all and Ray Franks on timer a hard time ensuring everyone was clicked as finishing at the right time. However, I think everyone got their time pretty much spot on and nothing was lost, but it did warn the volunteer team that there was a need to try some ideas to stop any issues happening if the field got any bigger.

Peter Smith stepped up with an idea which he demonstrated with a brilliant PowerPoint slide show. It looked a lot like sheep penning with a double wide funnel and a couple of gates. When one side fills up simply switch the runners into the second side – effectively lengthening the funnel by around 20 metres as and when needed. In general, it worked well and I hope all the runners understood what was going on and didn’t get cold queuing while the other side of the funnel was emptied. We felt that the test proved largely successful and well done to the team for making it work so well. Although we didn’t hit the heights of 1,000 runners we did have the second largest field ever and peaked at 89 runners per minute. Next week it will be in operation again, however we will have some extra poles and so the double wide funnel will be a bit longer, hopefully giving even greater comfort to the timer and funnel teams. Well done to everyone, Peter for the idea, the funnel team for pulling it off so well and all the athletes for being such good mannered ‘sheep’ in our experiment – hopefully this can mean there is less stress and Bushy parkrun can continue to grow.

And while I am on the subject of the volunteers –

The inaugural Nick Blanchard trophy

No one could say that Nick Blanchard does things by half. Back in November he ran his 50^th lap of Bushy Park, but has not run since – I believe through injury. But in this time he has thrown himself into volunteering and the last few weeks he has been the regular ‘bucket man’ at Bushy Park – collecting the finish tokens of anyone without a personal barcode and he has done it with ‘a little bit of a flourish’! It’s a vital role and stops the cost and hassle for Ray Franks in having to make too many replacements each week, but anyone who has run at Bushy over the last few weeks can’t have failed to notice we had probably the most enthusiastic ‘bucket man’ ever. Almost every single runner was asked by a smiling Nick…

‘Have you got two barcodes, because one isn’t enough. If you only have one…’

‘Don’t take my tokens home with you, mind! - I’m watching!’

This week, Nick took a turn on registration and decided to add a little spice and make it a competition – who could scan the most runners! His will to win even had him wandering down to the end of the finish funnel to maximise his totals!

When uploading the results to parkun HQ, I got the opportunity to review the registration files and can now exclusively reveal that the winner of the inaugural Nick Blanchard trophy for Registrational Excellence goes to …

David Hudson!

David scanned the most runners, followed by Rachel, Carol, Steve and finally in last place – Nick! It’s not a fair competition as it massively depends on where you stand and all the positions are vital – but Nick, as you decided to make it a competition I feel it is only fair to give the results! Maybe a bit more practise is needed before you recreate your bucketing results on the scanners!!

The stats

How Many

We had 899 runners
83 chose not to register a result, leaving a ‘known field’ of 816

Who were they?

552 Men – 68% of known field
264 women – 32%
133 juniors, 197 Seniors and 486 Vets

How dedicated?

79 Bushy first timers – 10%
With 61 new to parkrun overall – 7%
235 runners have completed 50 parkruns
112 have done 100 runs
2 have more than 250 – although I am confident this will be more next week
The average was 42.0 parkruns per runners

How fast?

We saw 176 PBs – 22%

Token Takers?

Unfortunately, there were 3 tokens missing. If you find one in your pocket, please contact ray@parkrun.com and he can arrange for repatriation!

And finally

This week was the second time in history that the Bushy field saw 3 people with the surname Riding among the field. Back in Sept 2009, Zoe Riding ran her first lap of Bushy Park to finish in 29:04. In the subsequent 2 ½ years she run at Bushy 69 more times and lowered her PB by almost 4 minutes – She is a passionate parkrun supporter and I am sure she would have run more without it clashing with her dancing commitments.

However, in April last year, she also finally convinced her mother Verity to come along. Initially, Verity would tell anyone that she was only doing it for a nice walk, was not a committed runner and certainly wouldn’t be a regular. However, over the first few weeks, she was at most events and as she progressed from walking to run-walking and now consistent running she saw PBs flowing regularly and has taken an incredible 15 minutes off her time! In the course of her 31 parkruns, she has seen her Age Grading peak at 59.26% and I am pretty sure she will break the 60% barrier when the ground is a little firmer underfoot. She is one of the many runners at Bushy Park who make me smile and I laughed when a few months back she mentioned that she was only doing it while the weather held - ‘Certainly don’t expect to see me here through the winter!’ . Well, this week when I got into the car to drive to Bushy Park the temperature gauge read -5°C and Verity was there as usual! She has run Bushy parkrun three times in Nov, five in Dec and twice so far in Jan – Not a committed runner? – Sometimes, you do talk rubbish, Mrs Riding!

This week I had the pleasure to be introduced to her husband, Keith, who had just run his second parkrun – Well done to Keith and welcome to the parkrun community. But then again, he’s probably not committed to it either!

Anyway, that’s enough for this week

Take care and see you next week

Andy W

PS. Rob – Sorry, I hope better late than never!

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Sun 01/15/2012

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