First Frost of the Season
A lovely crisp and rather chilly autumn day greeted us this morning.
Arriving at 8.30, the park was still shrouded in fog, but the sun threatened to break through. Thanks to Rodney McCulloch for the two beautifully taken photos.
Fifteen minutes later, and the fog melted away just in time for Nick to give his briefing to the first timers.
Meanwhile, back at the finish, Ray was giving funnel management instructions to two of our wonderful Duke of Edinburgh volunteers.
This week, we were all very fortunate that 19 lovely DofE young people got out of bed early on a Saturday morning to help ensure the smooth running of Bushy parkrun. Without their help, we would be struggling for volunteers some weeks. If you would like to help as a marshal or scanner or in one of the many other positions, please sign up as a volunteer. You don't have to help on a regular basis, just every now and then is fine, there is no commitment. Have a look at the volunteer rota which is available on the Bushy parkrun website under 'Volunteering' https://www.parkrun.org.uk/bushy/futureroster and see if there is anything you fancy. Drop an email to Pat at bushyhelpers@parkrun.com and he will add your name.
Many thanks to all the volunteers this week:
Anand AGGARWAL, Joy BELL, Jack BENNETT, Nick BLANCHARD, Ted BRAMPTON, Tony CATON, Carolyn COOPER-BURROWS, Lucas CURTIS, Lola DACHTLER, William DUMBRELL, Alex DUMBRELL, Paddy FITZPATRICK, Ray FRANKS, Janice FRANKS, Christine FRY, Paige GOODWIN, Stella HAMMOND, Samantha HANLEY, Olivia HEATLEY, David HOPPE, Andrew HOWARTH, Emilie HOWES, Gabriel HUXLEY-JENNINGS, Lucy KATESMARK, Bert KIDWELL, Katie KNOTT, Catelin LE FRANC, Margaret LE FRANC, Selma LEE, Angela MACSON, Stephen MARFLEET, Fiona MCANENA, Steve MILLER, Trevor MITCHELL, Grace MORENO-MASEY, Diane MULLEN, Zainab OSAMA, Meera PANCHARATNAM, Hannah ROBERTSON, Nick ROWE, Anna SAVILL, Nick SAVILL, Merran SELL, James SELL, Julie SMITH, Jonathan SMITH, Jonty STEGMANN, Carol SWAFFER, Lucy THATCHER, Alex TICKELL, Lia TYNAN, Colby WALLACE WATERSON, Simon WALLWORK, James Oliver WELCH, James WHISTLER, Dorrie WHITING, Andrew John WINGATE
AN APPEAL on behalf of WRAP UP LONDON
Some of you may have noticed Bushy parkrun regular Julie Papworth, stuffing coats into her boot this morning. This is because Julie has kindly volunteered to collect unwanted coats on behalf of the Wrap up London appeal. Coats are then distributed to homeless people who may be very much in need as the weather gets colder. If you are able to donate an unwanted coat to the appeal, Julie will again be collecting at Bushy parkrun on Saturday 16th November. You will be able to find Julie by the Volunteer Station (bin)! In case you are unsure who Julie is - see below. Thank you for your support.
....and now to the run
A total of 1331 of us set off at 9.00am to enjoy what had become a lovely morning (of course, it's parkrun day).
Amongst our numbers were 32 First Timers - welcome to you all, hope you enjoyed it and will be back next week. One first timer who definitely had a good time was Georgina who was encouraged to come along to parkrun by her friend Neo.
Another First Timer to be congratulated is Sophie. She had been round before in a buggy, but this was the first time she had gone round on two feet - brilliant, especially as Sophie is only 5 years old, well done Sophie.
MILESTONES
10 RUNS
Junior runners who will be getting their 10 tee-shirts:
Isla, (JW 11-14) a Durham City Harrier, who was visiting today with her family and friends (you can see her picture in 'Today's Visitors'). Isla has completed 24 junior and 10 senior parkruns and today ran in an impressive time of 27:04, an age grade of 61.45%. Well done Isla.
Lexi (JW 10), a Bushy parkrun regular, is also to be congratulated today. Lexi has completed 16 junior and 10 Senior parkruns - fantastic achievement, well done Lexi.
50 RUNS
Congratulations to:
Oliver JACKMAN
Kate HOLMES (visiting Bushy Park for the first time today, from usual parkrun at Richmond - welcome Kate)
Steve LORDE
Charlotte FRAMPTON
Alex MAY
I spotted Alex proudly holding his '50' balloon at the start - well done Alex.
100 RUNS
Lorna OLIVER
Annabel CROUCH
Kelly BURKE (pictured below)
and Gavin SLATER (pictured below)
PERSONAL BESTS
An amazing 104 of you achieved a PB this week - congratulations to you all. A special 'well done' should go to Ralph Blackbourn who has done nearly 300 runs and today achieved a PB. There is hope for us all! Well done also to Emma Poole and Georgina Lever who also achieved PBS and have both completed over 200 runs.
THE 80% AND OVER GROUP
Well done to the runners below who managed to achieve an impressive age grade of 80% and above.
| Simon BAINES | 88.52% |
| Pamela WHITTER | 87.68% |
| Laurence DUFFY | 85.10% |
| Andrius JAKSEVICIUS | 84.50% |
| Vincent RIVIERE | 84.10% |
| Polly ADAMS | 84.03% |
| Ross FRANKS | 81.82% |
| Stephen JACKSON | 81.31% |
| Patricia RONKSLEY | 81.15% |
| Luke PIKETT | 81.06% |
| Jonathan MAINWARING | 80.88% |
| Szymon CHOJNACKI | 80.75% |
| Shirley BUCKLEY | 80.46% |
SOME OF TODAY'S VISITORS
Visiting us today from Guernsey - Francis
From Brisbane - Stuart
From Ryazan, Russia - Anna and Constantin
From Splinters Running Group - Clare, Karen, Alice and Jenny
From Durham - 'Durham Mum's on the run', Abigail and Vics, Elvert Striders, Rory and Corrine, and from Durham City Harriers, Isla (10 Parkruns today) and Lewis who is one parkrun behind his sister having achieved 9 senior runs and a fantastic 30 junior parkruns. Today Lewis (JM10) also had a great run time of 24:10, and age grade of 67.66% - well done Lewis - 10 tee-shirt next week.
From 'Parkrun Laughs' a group of runners who met on Facebook and created a Group. Their group page states that they are a group dedicated to laughing along with parkrun - what could be better?! The group today hailed from across the country, and they all looked to be fulfilling their remit - lovely to meet you.
We also had a running champion in our midst today. Charlotte Purdue and her training group joined us for parkrun. Charlotte has an impressive career history and is the UK junior record holder for the 10,000 m with a time of 32:36.75 minutes (quicker than my 5K)! This year Charlotte was 10th in the London marathon in an amazing time of 2:25:38.
TIME TO GO HOME
The last bar-code is scanned and the volunteers troop off for their well earned coffee at The Pheasantry
One lucky volunteer also gets to take home all the kit - and bring it back again next week!
A special thanks to Una who is with us whatever the weather to help collect and sort the tokens. Here she is on her way to The Pheasantry, ably assisted by Les.
The work isn't over yet. All the tokens, all 1331 of them, have to be sorted into groups of 50 ready for next week. This is mostly done over convivial conversation, a warm drink and frequently a sneaky bacon sarnie - well that's why we run isn't it?!
Finally, some shots of the Woodland Garden with beautiful Autumn trees, to remind us, as if we need it, how lucky we are to have such a beautiful park in which to run.
See you next week
Stella Hammond
