Ray, Kev and Steve were up and about early today as not only were they setting up parkrun, they were also putting out the course for the final event in the kid’s open cross-country challenge later this morning too! After a rainy day and night the grass was certainly wet today, but not half as muddy as it was for the previous XC event last month, as the press photographs testified! The junior event meant that many of our regular kids were saving themselves up today and marshalling parkrun instead of running it, so it was certainly a well-staffed run! Many thanks to Ray and all the crew, volunteers, time-keepers and scanners this week, and to Simon Randall for administrating. Simon will also be doing the volunteer roster and admin for next week too, whilst Ray is away, so please don’t hesitate to tell him if you would like to help in any capacity. There are still some key marshalling jobs unfilled if anyone wants to step up! 

One of our very own Medina IW runners achieved the national accolade “Parkrunner of the week” last week, so may I say many congratulations to the very lovely Jay Tuck, and well done parkrun for recognising in Jay his devotion to parkrun and his new-found passion for running. If you haven’t already read the latest parkrun national newsletter do take a look at the interview with Jay – it is the last feature on the E-newsletter. 

Now that the 2012 Olympic torch has touched down on UK soil, excitement is also mounting for our two parkrunners who have been chosen as part of the national torch relay team. Eden Crumplin and Les Cupis are the lucky runners, and we were lucky enough to have young Eden running today even though she is also going to be helping out the younger runners at the cross-country challenge later. 

Despite the lack of juniors on the start line we still had an excellent crowd of more than 100 runners lining up today, including 15 first timers, and 96 people completed the entire 5km course in what turned-out to be surprisingly hot conditions. It was a special run for Ian Dyer, Alec Broome and Sue Williams as today they reached their first milestone of 10 parkruns. Steve Gratton, Sara Truckel and Sheelagh Thornett were doing their 20^th runs, and Chris Murphy and Paul Charlton-Smith were participating in their 30^th parkruns to date. Meanwhile stalwarts Rob Holdsworth and Katie Lewis have reached 40 parkruns and are well on their way to parkrun “50” t-shirts!

 We also had some visiting parkrunners from the “big Island” with us today; Robin Farrar (Bungay Black Dog RC), Izzy Thomas (Hercules Wimbledon AC), Will Thomas (Phoenix Triathlon) and Peter Stainer (Shaftsbury Barnet Harriers). Within a minute of Ray shouting “GO” it was clear that there was a strong, new contender for first place amongst our regular “fast guys”, and it turned out to be aforementioned Peter Stainer giving a magnificent run and finishing first in 18:11. We thought this was good, but it is more than half a minute off Peter’s parkrun PB so he was clearly holding back! Actually, as Peter has only run the Puckpool course before  I know there were a few corners on the Medina course today that he was unsure of which caused him to slow his pace, but I hope he enjoyed his jaunt around Seaclose nonetheless, and he certainly made it look easy! Peter’s fantastic run also earned him the highest age-graded score of 81.12%, and he still holds second place on the age-graded League Table with the 84.29% from his previous IW parkrun on Easter Saturday. 

Finishing second this week was our 6-time champion Stuart Backhouse with 19:07, and we would like to thank Stuart for staying behind to act as a pace-setter for the juniors in the cross-country challenge later. We know from past experience that this really adds to the excitement for the youngsters, and I have heard how some of the juniors try really hard to beat Stuart rather than each other, and how hard he has to sprint at the end to make sure they don’t!! After last week’s victory, Al Rowe relaxed the pace a bit this week but still finished in third place with a time of 19:09, after trying to beat Stuart over the line himself and only missing out by 2 seconds! 

Making a welcome return to parkrun was previous winner Nina French, who managed to outstrip fellow Wight Tri member Neil Cooper to steal 12^th pace overall and first lady over the line in her new PB time of 21:32. Neil – incidentally – also achieved a new PB today! In second place again (20^th overall) was Heather Drudge, and Heather ran faster than last week to finish in a time of 22:57, whilst Heather’s IOWRR club-mate Carla Paonessa achieved third place with 24:02.                 

Steve Gratton, whose ambition is to beat Graham “Tucky” Tuck’s  age graded record of 86.08%, achieved the second highest age graded score this week of 80.10% but still holds 4^th place on the League Table with the 81.52% achieved during a previous run.  Keep at it, Steve! We also welcomed back two old faces to parkrun today; Glyn Jenkins and Sheelagh Thornett, and Sheelagh celebrated her first parkrun of 2012 (and her 20^th parkrun to date) with a new PB! The first of many more I hope. In total there were 20 new PBs today, so very well done to all of you. 

The Points Tables and Stats

Points wise, as this is our 3^rd run of the new parkrun year, it is also the last time the weekly volunteers such as Ray, Kev, Simon, Steve, Justine and myself will receive our automatic 100 points for helping, as parkrun only do this a maximum of 3 times a year. For now all I’ll do is chant “losers” to the rest of you, as Justine C. and myself are actually leading the ladies table for some brief, ecstatic moments, whilst Heather D. is third with 297! It won’t last but Justine and I are revelling in it for the next 7 days anyway! On the men’s table there are 5 contenders with 300 points (Steve, Ray, Kev, Paul and my hubby – Simon!), so now it will start to get interesting… 

There were no new records set today, so if speedy runners want a challenge they still have to aim for 16:30 minutes overall or 19:19 for the ladies. 

You may like to know that since 7^th May 2011 our Medina IW parkrun has had 738 different runners, including representatives of 60 different athletics clubs, running the equivalent of 4,195 parkruns, achieving 1,159 PBs and covering the total distance of 20,975kms. In case anyone has missed the educational value of my write-ups, this is also the distance (as the crow or 747 flies!) between Las Vegas and Yichang – the 2^nd largest city in the Chinese province of Hubei. So now you know!

Future Events 

Don’t forget to get your red, white and blue running gear ready for the Jubilee run on 2^nd June. It has now been confirmed that IOW MP – Andrew Turner (whom some of you may have run past whilst he was walking his dog in Seaclose today!) – has offered to come and start this event, and I predict there will be lots of flag-waving on course that day! 

Don’t forget that as of 16^th June parkrun will be out of Medina until 28^th July. Most of these weeks it will take place at Appley/Puckpool, but there will be a completely new course just for one day on 23^rd June as we will not be able to use EITHER of our regular courses. More details soon! Please don’t forget that sadly we are going to have to cancel parkrun on 14^th July – the day of the Olympic torch parade - due to the Primary Island Games, which the parkrun team are heavily involved with. 

The “SparkLE” study on the effect of parkrun on lifestyle and exercise only has 3 weeks remaining, so if you are over 18 and haven’t yet done the questionnaire please consider doing so. We all know that parkrun is great, but the guys and gals at Loughborough University want to prove that it really, truly is! It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you think you are, or how many – or few – times you have done parkrun, your views and opinions still count, and everyone who participates will be entered into a prize draw. So far the stats show that more people have done the survey from the Barnsley parkrun than any other parkrun in the UK, and I don’t know about you but that sounds like a challenge to me! Come on IOW folk – let’s show them how important we think parkrun is, and get this survey rock and rolling! www.parkrun.com/sparkle 

Finally, there are some events tomorrow which I know some of our parkrunners are involved in, and I would therefore like to wish everyone who is doing the Netley 10K, or any other event, all the very best. One of our parkrunners – Steve Rumsey – is off to gorgeous Richmond Park to take part in the annual marathon there, so good luck Steve x 

As I close I hope the kids all had a great time at the cross-country challenge today. As it is now Saturday afternoon as I finish this, I have already been lucky enough to have peek at the medals won by Ben and Dylan Holdsworth today (very well done lads!), and will be expecting to see others from the rest of our young parkrunners who took part! 

See you at Medina next week, 

Jo R.   xx

Blue skies, sunshine and the most excellent company were the rewards today for getting up early to take part in our 54^th IOW parkrun, and 97 runners (including 10 first-timers) lined up in the Medina fields. It was all strangely tranquil after the excitement and activity of last week, and a perfect morning for a run with friends. We also welcomed back veteran parkrunner Pat Morton  from Bromley, who has run with us before and was today notching up her 63^rd parkrun! 

Ray directed today and was backed-up by a great team of volunteers, including our Sweatshop Prize Winner for April – Arielle Elton Walters. Well done and grateful thanks to you all, because parkrun wouldn’t be possible (or allowed!) without volunteers to take the key roles.  I was multi-tasking today as I was event photographer and position chip distributor, so I had to put the camera away once runners started to approach the final km. I would therefore like to thank Liz Cooper who offered to do more photography at this point, and took what - I know you will agree - are some FANTASTIC and evocative pictures, and I have to say Liz - you’ve got the job!! I particularly enjoyed the one of Steve Duff doing his famous “parkrun lunge” by request at the finishing line! 

We had a few runners without bar-codes today, or with scrunched up or damaged bar-codes that wouldn’t scan. Please remember the “No (legible) bar-code = No result” rule. We try to accommodate people as much as possible, but scanning issues cause a lot of work and time for the volunteers AFTER the event, and as numbers increase the whole process becomes more complicated; hence the parkrun rule. Pop it in a plastic wallet or get it laminated and our troubles will be few and far between. Thanks peeps! 

Before I venture into the results today, I would like to apologise to all our cake-bakers last week, as I forgot to mention all the wonderful and imaginative creations made for our anniversary event! Despite the rain the cakes, biscuits and drinks went down very well with everyone, and we would like to thank you all for getting in the spirit and loving parkrun as much as we do, and a huge thanks to those of you who specially baked and decorated those wonderful parkrun inspired cakes. Investigation is still on-going as to who ate the cake with Ray’s name on, but he is being very magnanimous about the whole thing thanks to the huge box of choccies we all presented him with! I would also like to let you all know that I have today donated the remaining money from Ray’s collection (rounded up this came to £17) into our IW parkrun fund via the results page, and I encourage anyone else who didn’t contribute to Ray’s gifts, but still wants to do something special in honour of all Ray’s hard work, to do the same! 

Back to today, and with some of our usual fast guys out on the course it was always going to be an interesting run, but none of us expected to see parkrun regular, and previous 6-time winner, Alan Rowe exploding away in the final lengths and sprinting like Mo Farrah to take the 1^st place position in such style! Al’s time was 18:55 (less than 10 secs off his PB) but sadly I think the 2012 Olympic places have already been designated now Al!  In 2^nd place today was last week’s 3^rd place man - Eric Smith - running just his 2^nd parkrun but already achieving a new PB of 18:59. Our other 6 time-previous winner Stuart Backhouse (VM40-44) finished 3^rd in 19:03. A special mention also has to go to talented IWAC junior Ben Holdsworth (JW14), who ran so strongly he held 4^th place for much of the run, and eventually finished 8^th overall. 

Some of our juniors were missing today, or saving themselves for other weekend athletics events, and one of these was Eden Crumplin. Eden still wanted to take part in parkrun though, and offered her services as a pace-setter for another runner, so although she does not feature in today’s top-3 ladies you can be sure she was there and selflessly helping others to potential PBs.  The 1st lady home today – for the first time in her 19 parkruns - was relatively new runner Natalie Lazenby, who last month took part in her first ever half-marathon and has taken to running like a duck to water!  This was a fabulous new PB time of 22:29 for young Nat too. Natalie’s Club-mate and previous parkrun winner - Heather Drudge - was 2^nd in 23:03, whilst Sally Roberts made a welcome return after a few weeks off by taking 3^rd place in 24:04.                                           

A special mention must go to again to Steve Gratton for achieving the highest age graded score of 79.28% this week, whilst Al “Speedy Gonzalez” Rowe earned the second highest score of 76.74%. 

There were actually 19 new PBs today, and whilst you are ALL superstars I think a Special mention should go to the youngsters who did so well today: Katy Haggerty, William and James Dixon and Harry Furmidge.  Harry was also taking part in his 10^th ever parkrun, as were Michelle Boundy and Elaine Jones.  Paul Simpson and Tom Timmons were doing their 20^th parkruns so far, whilst familiar faces Neil Cooper, Cheryl Frampton, Abigail Keyte and Margaret Niland-Murphy were all completing their 30^th parkruns. Steve Apsey was doing his landmark 40^th parkrun today and is now on his way to a “50” t-shirt! 

The Points Tables and Stats

Once again, the volunteers points mean that lots of people are tied in first place on the points table (including me!), so we’ll let it go for a few more weeks and then it will start to get more interesting! 

The female course record holder is still Jackie Perrin with her time of 19:19 achieved on 22^nd October 2011. The male course record holder is still John Collier for his 16:30 achieved on 1^st October 2011, and Graham Tuck still leads the age graded score board with the 86.08% earned from his run on 14^th January 2012, so this is what we are all aiming to beat! 

Since 7^th May 2011 our Medina IW parkrun has had 723 different runners, including representatives of 59 different athletics clubs, running the equivalent of 4,099 parkruns, achieving 1,139 PBs and covering the total distance of 20,495kms.

Future Events 

Don’t forget to let Ray know (using the website email address or our new parkrun Facebook page) if you are able to volunteer at any future event, as these things have to be organised in advance. I will hopefully be running on Saturday 26^th, so if anyone would like to do photography that day please don’t be shy. All you need is a digital camera and a Flickr account, and we will tell you the rest. Liz – if you would like to do them I would be your slave forever and would love to discuss it with you sometime! 

Don’t forget to get your red, white and blue running gear ready for the Jubilee run on 2^nd June. There is talk of a local personality starting the run that day too, so watch this space! We can have our own parkrun “street party” afterwards if anyone fancies the idea?  No tables provided, but bring a rug perhaps, and some munchies or drinkies! 

We will be running at Medina up to and including June 9^th, but will then have to relocate to Ryde until 28^th July. There is a chance we may be able to return to Medina a week earlier than this, but we’ll let you know. Make a note in your diaries too that the run on 23^rd June is going to be special as we will not be able to use EITHER of our regular courses. Ray has something secret planned and will announce it in due course! 

Regrettably we are going to have to cancel parkrun on 14^th July – the day of the Olympic torch parade. Almost all of the parkrun team will be busy with the Primary Island Games at Medina all day, and we have therefore had to make the decision to cancel parkrun just for this one week. Anyone who wants to run unofficially at Puckpool (a parkrun “freedom run”) that morning can do so for their own pleasure, but please remember that Medina will be out of bounds and there will be no signage or equipment available. Ray can provide maps of this course if anyone DOES want to do this. 

Before I sign off I would like to wish all our running friends who are taking part in any of the numerous events tomorrow (Walk-the-Wight, the Alton 10 mile road race or the RNLI Lymington 10K) the very best of luck and a nice, sunny day. I will end this week’s report with another fabulous Cooper family joke for you:- 

Q:  How do you start a firefly race?

A:  Ready, steady, GLOW! 

Jo R.   xx

We are referring to the lovely Arielle Elton Walters. Arielle has done 20 parkruns since joining us, and has shown a massive improvement in that short time from 35:30 minutes to 27:58 minutes; a huge difference of 7:32 minutes.  Arielle has achieved 12 PBs in total so far, and even though conditions have been decidedly sticky at Medina over the past 6 weeks, 3 of these occurred during April! Arielle has also volunteered on several occasions. 

The determination and enthusiasm Arielle has shown is a great advert for parkrun, and she thoroughly deserves this award. 

We congratulate Arielle, and thank parkrun sponsor Sweatshop for their generosity. Arielle wins a well-deserved pair of running shoes from Sweatshop!

Jo Randall & Ray Scovell

Despite the rain, the grey skies and the unexpected football tournament taking place in the fields beside our course, no-body’s spirits were dampened on this happy and exciting anniversary parkrun.  The festivities today were started – under a dripping gazebo behind the Leisure Centre - with some surprise presentations by Race Director Ray Scovell to those few stalwarts who have volunteered 50 times or more during our first year. Beautiful medals were therefore awarded to Steve Duff, Kev Fry, Justine Crumplin, my husband – Simon Randall – and myself. I know I speak for all of us when I say that it has been an absolute pleasure and privilege to be so involved with this amazing initiative, and to receive this lovely memento has been wonderful – thank you Ray xx Well done to all the marshalls and volunteers who have made this year possible, and have stood patiently and encouragingly in wind, rain, frost and mud, and occasionally (but not often!!) the heat of the sun; you are all treasured and appreciated. 

Ray followed on with the end of year prizes for the top points-winning 3 males and females for 2011/12. Although there were no surprises here, the trophies themselves were absolutely beautiful, and I can see I’m going to have to run a lot more this year if I’m in with a chance of winning one myself next time! The 3^rd place winners were Al Rowe and Mabel Lewis, the 2^nd place awards went to Jay Tuck and Katie Lewis, and the 1st place trophies went to Eden Crumplin – the undisputed “parkrun Queen” of 2011/12 – and the absent Mike Morris. I understand that Mike is returning to the UK in the summer and will be able to collect his trophy then. 

There then followed a surprise announcement by Claire Apsey and myself. I say surprise, but the only one who was surprised was Ray himself, as we had all got together behind his back to find of way of thanking this amazing, visionary and enthusiastic man for bringing parkrun to the Isle of Wight, and being the power behind it ever since. A huge “thank you” card was instigated by parkrunner Natalie Lazenby a few weeks ago, and it was absolutely filled with comments, compliments and thanks by the time Natalie presented it to Ray today. We also felt that we needed something more to show our appreciation and therefore have been collecting for a gift. I am astonished and heartened to tell you that we have so far raised over £100, out of which Ray was today presented with a £60 book token, a bottle of fizz and the largest box of chocolates I could find! There is still a little money left over, which with Ray’s blessings I am going to pay into our IW parkrun fund to help with future events.  Anyone who has not yet contributed but wishes to do so is still very welcome – the pot is at the Love Running shop in Newport for the next week, and I will be at parkrun next week as usual if you would like to donate anything retrospectively. 

So much to tell you this week! Amongst the 108 runners (106 finished) lining up in the rain, we welcomed  7 brave first-timers. There was also a new face volunteering today, in the form of Nicola Henry, and now that she has seen what it is all about I will encourage her to run next week! 

We also welcomed David Blackman (VM45-49) to the Medina course, veteran parkrunner David having last run on the Island at Puckpool in April, and he started his impressive run today with aspirations of achieving the highest age graded score for his age group. David ran extremely impressively, and was the first person over the line in the fantastic time of 17:38 – almost 2 minutes ahead of the rest of the field! I can now tell you that his age-graded score was 80.43%, which was not only the highest at our event, but has – indeed – put David at the top of his age-group on the leader board! In 2^nd place today was parkrun regular, and previous 6-time winner, Stuart Backhouse (VM40-44) in 19:21, whilst close behind was first-timer Eric Smith (VM45-49) making his parkrun debut in style in 19:24. I would like to congratulate all the guys and say that this is surely proof indeed that us “40-somethings” can still rock! 

More proof of this in the ladies results, as we had the welcome return of 11-time previous winner Mary Norman (VW45-49) in the top spot today, storming home (22^nd overall) in 21:59. Heather Drudge (VW45-49), who has also had a previous victory on this course, was 2^nd in 22:55, and only seconds off her PB, whilst flying the flag for the teenagers today was our 3^rd lady over the line, and previous 2-time winner, Grace Crumplin (JW15-19) in 23:24. 

Special mentions must go to: Steve Gratton for achieving the second highest age graded score of 78.95%. Steve also remains top of his age-group on the overall score board. Also to our 4^th place man today; Simon Lewis. It was a phenomenal PB for this lovely man, and one almost mirrored by his wife 5 minutes later, but Katie missed her PB by just 9 seconds in the end. It was very stodgy out there today, with footballers and spectators milling about on the course too, so how anyone managed a PB I just don’t know, and yet 17 of you did! 

We also witnessed 3 generations of one family taking part today; Owen and Harry Furmidge  took part with their Dad, Sean  (fresh from his excellent London Marathon effort), and Granny Joy. The boys also got new PBs too! 

Congratulations to everyone who got a PB today. I don’t have space to name you all but will single out a couple of people who deserve a special mention; Claire Campbell – who has missed it by seconds for so many weeks now but has finally broken the curse!, and Ellie Bacon - who is back from injury and showing that she hasn’t lost her touch!

Taking part in their 10^th parkruns today were Dominic Batchelor, Neil Simmons and Les Cupis. Meanwhile, Nick Kenney, Ian Jolliffe and Paul Littler were doing their 20^th parkruns; Elsie Lewis, Mark Hill and Tim Keyte were completing their 30^th runs, and veteran parkrunner and “overner” - Giles Devlin - was doing his 1^st IW parkrun but his 59^th overall!                                    

The Points Tables and Stats

All points were reset to “0” last week, so we start this new parkrun year with a clean slate. After today’s run all the volunteers plus the first male/female over the line are equal on 100 points, and parkrun arrange these names alphabetically, so it would be unfair to say who are the “top 3”.  Therefore, please forgive me if I don’t start to detail the top-3 in each table until a month’s time when the regular volunteers (like me, Simon, Kirsty, Steve, Kev, Paul and Justine!) have used up our automatic 300 point awards, and the results will then be based on running achievements. I will, however, treasure these precious 3 weeks when I am – to all intents and purposes – joint winner on the female table!! 

The course records remain as follows:  the female course record holder is Jackie Perrin with her time of 19:19 achieved on 22^nd October 2011.  The male course record holder is John Collier for his 16:30 achieved on 1^st October 2011.  Graham Tuck leads the age graded score board with the 86.08% earned from his run on 14^th January 2012. 

Since 7^th may 2011 our Medina IW parkrun has had 713 different runners, including representatives of 59 different athletics clubs, running the equivalent of 4,002 parkruns, achieving 1,120 PBs and covering the total distance of 20,010.

Future Events 

Volunteers are always needed for the future parkruns, so please get in touch with Ray ASAP if you think you can help at any event. Parkrun is entirely run by volunteers who give their time to make sure the event can go ahead and run smoothly, so please don’t be shy about stepping forward. Also, please don’t just turn up on the day offering to help, as by then we have had to fill the important roles already – sometimes sacrificing the chance to run to ensure that enough helpers are on hand. Also, whilst I enjoy doing the photos most weeks, if anyone would ever like to do the photography instead(all you need is a digital camera and a “Flickr” account) please let me know in good time as it will free up the chance for me to do other duties or even run myself! Big thanks. On that note may we would like to thank Katherine McMorran for doing the photography at today’s anniversary event – much appreciated! 

Don’t forget to start dusting off your red, white and blue running gear for the Jubilee run in June. Hopefully this will still be at Medina, but then we have a long spell (6 weeks I believe) when parkrun will be forced to relocate to Puckpool. Ray informs me that he has slightly altered the Puckpool course now to start and end at Appley Park instead, but he assures me that there are still plenty of hills! 

I will end with a home-made joke, for which I apologise! 

Q:  What is the favourite running event of dinosaurs?

A:  Jurassic Parkrun!

Jo R.   xx

Bad news IW parkrunners, Ray has been informed of a very short notice football festival now due to take place in the fields at Medina this coming Saturday – 5^th May. 

As this is ridiculously short notice, and it is such a special parkrun for us all, Ray has insisted that we should be able to go ahead as planned with our special anniversary parkrun, but in order to do this we are going to have to change a few things (just for this week) as follows:- 

Parking

We WILL NOT be able to park in the tennis courts this coming Saturday. Parking will be in the main car-parks (where space allows), or at Seaclose if these areas are full. Please note that the Seaclose car-park is “pay & display”. 

Anniversary Presentations

As time will be of a premium this Saturday, and we will have to vacate the field as soon as possible, the anniversary presentations and announcements will now be made BEFORE the run. We therefore need everyone to assemble – in the usual place – by 8.45am please. 

Assembly Area

We will – this week – assemble and hold the presentations on the grassy area above the big slope; just behind the back of the Leisure Centre (where the equipment lock-up is). After the presentation any food, drink and belongings can then be locked in Ray’s van until afterwards, and we will all move down to our usual start place in the field. 

The Party

For those of us staying behind and celebrate the 1^st anniversary of the IW parkrun, we will return to the assembly point above the big slope to eat, drink and be merry! 

Be strong folks. This might be a dreadful disappointment but we can all cope with this and rally around Ray, and still make this a memorable and very happy anniversary. Please pass round the word to anyone you know who may be coming on Saturday, thanks. 

See you there,

Jo R. xx