What a perfect morning for parkrun. Finally a little sunshine, a light breeze and ideal temperatures.
Unfortunately I could not run due to injury. This was my first Saturday morning without running parkrun in 2012. So when I noticed Non-such parkrun Gazette had no correspondent this week, I offered to step in.
We arrived just in time to see about 50 parkrunners warming up with some group exercises. This is a quarter of all runners. Having participated in a few of these as well, I noticed how the first 5 minutes of the run is so much easier. So well done to all of you for arriving plenty in time.
With once again more than 200 runners, it was quite noisy at the start and hard to hear the announcements being made. Could just about make out plans for the jubilee run are coming along nicely. Shortly after 9 AM the start sign was given and the faster runners tried to catch up quickly with the lead bike. The rest of the pack crossed the start line and everyone settled into their pace. About 1 minute later, a late comer sprinted across the starting line. This reminded me of my first parkrun at Bushy where I was also a bit late. First annoyed about being late, I later enjoyed overtaking dozens of runners; great for a motivational run and a guaranteed negative split.
The winner, Tony Tuohy, was in the lead at half way in a time of 8.36 and finished in 17.18. What a great run, achieving an age grading of 85%, easily the best performance of the day. Even the lead cyclist had difficulty staying ahead as Tony was running very close to the bike. Second place was for junior Max Caulfield, after being 3rd at halfway. It was a very competitive run, and the good weather contributed to 7 PB’s , amongst the top 10 finishers. Great to see that they were all congratulating on each other achievements.
Overall finishing 21st and first lady home was Ashley Smith in 20.39 (lead the women’s race halfway in 10.14), a new PB. Again 7 out of the top 10 women ran a PB.
Congratulations also to Shaun Cleghorn who finished in 21.58 and was first home pushing a buggy home. I wonder what the age grading would be if he would register the little one for the run instead of himself.
By now the runners were starting to come through quite quickly. There are a lot of people pushing really hard towards the finish and showing impressive sprint efforts, with some close battles towards the token collection point. It is amazing that after 5K so many people still have that much energy.
Parkrun is such a great event for runners of all ages and capabilities. This morning I had two 14-year old girls in the car for the run. They happily get up early on a Saturday morning and enjoy Non-Such parkrun. Ella Geen is quickly approaching the 50 run mark and ran 28.48. This is a 40 second improvement on last week after 2 months off due to injury. Amy Ryckaert ran 30.08, 2 min 40 faster than last week and 2nd best time ever.
And finally a big welcome and congratulations to 19 new parkrunners. You accounted for almost 10% of the runners today. Soon the 250 runners mark will be hit and the car parks will get very full. In order to avoid this we could all do like the winner of today and cycle to and from the park. Is this the secret to running fast?
Guy Ryckaert