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.

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

Graced By Dame Kelly

This week, we were honoured to host a moving tribute to Milo Little, whose friends, family, classmates and teachers from Raynes Park High School were meeting to run / walk in memory of Milo and to raise money for CLIC Sargent. Milo was sadly lost to cancer last year, and this week he would have celebrated his 16th birthday. Anyone wishing to donate to CLIC Sargent can do so here:-

https://www.justgiving.com/remember/679768/Milo-Little

Family, friends, classmates and teachers of Milo Little

The event was organised by teacher Ben Smith, who was adding to the challenge by carrying a 50 lb rucksack.

Supporters of Milo approaching the big oak.

To the delight of many of us, we were visited by a pretty good runner from Tonbridge; Dame Kelly Holmes was taking part in the filming of a documentary in the park.

Warming up ready to field the adoration of the 1265!

Dame Kelly took time out to meet regulars and visitors; those born after Athens 2004 and many who can still remember those amazing heroics vividly!

British Athletics’ First Lady talks to Parkrun’s First Man

Run director Rob Phillips on his best behaviour today as his boss (Dame Kelly) was around! Addressing the 1265 strong field prior to the event.

First Timers

167 were taking part in their first parkrun at Bushy today, (over 14% of the registered field) of which 50 were brand new to Parkrun.

One of the first timers today was Bala from Malaysia (where they currently have 2 parkrun venues)

The magnificent Riverside Rebels provided 3 of the first timers completing their couch to 5K programme today; Congratulations to Sally, Karen and Lucy, hope to see you back here for more!

Milestones

No new members joined the 500 or 250 club today. However, John Clifton from Arrow Valley parkrun marked his 300^th run by making the trip down from the midlands with fellow runners from Arrow Valley and Redditch.

There were 4 runners joining the 100 club this week; Congratulations to:-

Vicky Webb

Andrew Limbrick

John Altman

Charley Stephens (First timer at Bushy)

Actor John Altman overcomes knee pain to complete his first parkrun for nearly 2 years to join the 100 club and claim the privilege of a photo with Nick Blanchard!

50

Paul Angulo

Jamie Baird

Marianne Wyles (first timer at Bushy – her 50 runs have been achieved acrossed 48 Venues!)

10

Joe Wilson

Rebecca Turpin (first timer at Bushy!)

More Visitors…

Fellow “moonrakers” (that’s a citizen of Wiltshire) from the City of Salisbury Athletics Club

Visitors from Huddersfield & Preston Parkruns

Lesley from Woodley parkrun

Visitors from Lincolnshire and Newark

The Run

Fairly blustery today (maybe costing 15 – 20 valuable seconds to my time?). However, there were still some super speedy performances today:-

First Men

1.       Elliot Dorey         15:44

2.       Will Woodcock  16:00

3.       Simon Baines     16:32

First  Women

1.       Mara Yamauchi 18:31

2.       Charlotte Ragan 19:04

3.       Alice Patterson                 19:26

Boys

1.       Yann Sydow       19:16

2.       Adam Conway   19:47

3.       Ryan Lynch         20:41

Girls

1.       Isabel Melbourne            22:40

2.       Ellena Deakin                     24:43

3.       Abigail Shackleton           26:03

Bushy Personal Bests

119 achieved today; quite an achievement in this wind, particularly by the following members of the 250 and the 100 club:-

Michael Hickey (321 runs) 19:59

Richard Lyons (276 runs) 24:57

Catherine Stephens (120 runs) 23:55

Eirwen Campbell (112 runs) 23:46

Denise Von Roretz (112 runs) 29:54

And Finally…

My dog Daisy uses her considerable spaniel strength to drag my wife (Rowena) and my daughter (Rowena) into this week’s run report!

See you on Saturday...

Chris Brimacombe

Don't forget you can now follow us on Instagram
intagram.com/bushyparkrun
 
Twitter at www.twitter.com/bushyparkrun
and for Bushy parkrun on facebook
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and for parkrun UK on facebook at
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Interested in volunteering at Bushy parkrun? Please e-mail bushyhelpers@parkrun.com
 
Want to give feedback? Have anything to say or want anyone mentioned in future run reports? Please e-mail bushyoffice@parkrun.com

All change in the funnel

The theme of this morning's run was Fog - would there be light at the end of the 'new funnel'?

The eagle eyed among you will have noticed a slight variation on the normal funnel formation. We now have a funnel that is more of a 'cane shape' than a horse shoe thus ending earlier than expected. I wonder how many others, like me, got caught out this morning happily chatting not realising that I was already at the token 'distribution point'. Sorry token team, I will be ready with my hand out next week.

Talking of the funnel, I met a lady today whilst queuing, who had been given a letter, and she had walked down the funnel to find someone to give it to, not realising what it was for! This was the lady's first time, and as she crossed the line, someone had thrust a laminated letter into her hand - confusion completely understandable. For anyone unsure how it all works, the funnel is a beautiful, well oiled machine with 'gates'. Because of the swelling ranks of Bushy parkrun runners, it is necessary to have a 'double funnel' to stop the queue backing over the finish line. So, when Ray is able to spot a gap between runners, the 'gate' is closed on one funnel and opened on the other. In order to keep your well earned position, the first person switching lanes gets a letter. These are given out in alphabetical order and the funnels are then emptied, also in alphabetical order. All clear now?!

Basically the rule is, if you get a letter, keep hold of it and as you approach the token team, hold it up high so they can see it. Other 'golden rules' of the funnel are 'stay in the order you finished'. This is because you are timed as you cross the finish line and the token you are then given at the end of the funnel corresponds with that time. Please, if you cross the finish line, stay in the funnel even if you don't have your barcode. If you leave the funnel, then that means that the time of everyone behind you will be out. If you know you are in a rush and don't have time to queue, just dip out to the side at the finish and your time won't be clocked. Simples!

If you don't have your barcode, and do cross the finish line, stay in the funnel and just drop your token into the box held by more volunteers at the end of the funnel. Remember, no barcode means no result. However, if you make a note of your number, you can still see what time you registered when the results come out (you will though be an unknown runner, we can't change that).

Enough of rules.........

Hunting for tourists in the fog I found a trio from Hook Runners - welcome Caroline, Mikita and Lisa.

I also met Sarah from Melbourne, but somehow forgot to take her photo. apologies Sarah, I hope you  enjoyed your morning.

Bobby Bear, the class bear from St Stephen's School in St Margarets was raring to start his parkrun with friend Mel.

Julie from New South Wales was here today to run her first ever Parkrun. As she was sporting a Chelsea hat, I thought she would would 'love' to have her photograph taken with Steve, a well known Man. City supporter - she looks delighted! Isn't it nice how parkrun brings people together!! Have fun at Wembley on Sunday both of you!!

This is Georgia - no explanations needed, it's all on her back!

Sarah and Richard joined us today from Exeter Riverside Parkrun - this was Richard's 50th run, so congratulations, hope you enjoyed it

These interesting T-Shirts caught my eye. This is Tony and Alison, part of 'Band on the Run' a group of runners formed from the Wyton Royal Airforce Band in Huntingdon. Their running group started 3 years ago and now has 25 members made up from musicians and family members. Alison, I'm sorry I only took a photo of your back!

Another big field today 1459 - the first timer's briefing is getting bigger and bigger.

The fog was still quite heavy as we started out, but didn't dampen our spirits.

The front runners coming out of the mist.

As we cross the line, the fog has started to lift and there is a glimpse of a nice day to come.

A penny for the thoughts of the two sensible people sitting down as we all puff and pant past them to the finish.

This way Verity!!

The new funnel of course works like a dream - thanks as always to Ray and the funnel team

A happy bunch of tourists at the finish - Norfolk Gazelles

Another group who obviously enjoyed their run today were runners from Peckham Rye - Happy 60th to Butch (in the frame).

The results bit....

1st home was Harvey Dixon in a truly impressive 14:58. Congratulations on your 86.19% age rated performance. Harvey joins the exclusive group of just 28 individuals to have broken 15 minutes at Bushy Park.
1st lady home was Hannah Irwin visiting us from Cambridge finishing in 16:59 with a 87.14% age rating. Well done Hannah!

In ideal running conditions, two age category records fell. Congratulations to Geraldine SCHAER who ran home in 19:18 to break the VW50-54 age category record with a 89.03% rating. Well done to Robert MCHARG whose impressive time of 17:21 and 88.57% was another age category best for VM55-59.

16 further impressive runs of over 80% to drool over were:

Laurence DUFFY        18:20      86.00%
Rachael WHEELER     22:05     85.43%
Polly ADAMS               20:43     84.07%
Fran KENDEN             24:34     83.79%
Deborah STEER          21:30     83.10%
Marcus SOLOMON     19:01      83.00%
Lily O'NEILL                 19:40      82.80%
Stephen POND            17:59      82.02%
Robert BATCHELOR   17:41      81.43%
Peter MITCHELL         17:30      81.05%
Jessica MAYER           19:08      81.01%
Rowena STENT           25:29      80.77%
Emma HARRIS            20:33      80.62%
Merran SELL                29:33      80.60%
Brigid HIBBERD           21:54      80.52%
Imogen DEAKIN           19:17      80.38%

Congratulations in particular to Bushy Park regular Michael Wilkins who achieve a PB of 21:07 at his Bushy Park run number 202. Sub 21 minutes next week Michael?

Milestones this week...

Included 7 athletes who achieved their super red 50 milestone tee-shirt.

Lucy CARTER
Lyla BAKER
Richard TAFFLER
Madeleine REARDON
Charlotte MCGEE
Elaine BRUCE
A special mention to Walid ZERHOUNI who celebrated with a PB as well.

3 athletes gained their coveted black 100 Milestone tee-shirt; Oliver MELBOURNE, Sharon O LEARY and also with a PB to celebrate Kevan BALDRY - well done all.

A further 3 athletes can look forward to joining the green 250 tee-shirt club. Well done Colin COBURN, Candice GODDARD and Paddy FITZPATRICK

No 500 milestones this week, but hopefully next week - Liz?

Finally, a very special milestone for the Riding family - Keith, Verity, daughter Zoe and her husband Mohammed who chalked up a family milestone of 1000 parkruns between them - what a great achievement.

Thanks as always to the fantastic volunteers this morning, who were:

Stuart AMORY, Katie BARLOW, Jude BENNETT, Jack BENNETT, Phil BLUER, Chris BRIMACOMBE, Steve CARPENTER, Helen CARPENTER, Luca CERASALE, Ray COWARD, Alex FERGUSSON, Ray FRANKS, Janice FRANKS, Charlotte FRASER, Robert FREY, Christine FRY, Nicola GOSCOMB, Stella HAMMOND, Finley HARRISON, Robby HEDGES, Bianca HOLLIS, Melanie HOWES, Emilie HOWES, Gabriel HUXLEY-JENNINGS, Stephen IGGLESDEN, Rob S JONES, Samuel JONES, Clare LE VOIR, Angela MACSON, Hayden MATTHEWS, Fiona MCANENA, Steve MILLER, Richard MOORE, Eoin PARFITT, Ella PATEL, Keith RIDING, Ian RILEY, Nick SAVILL, Anna SAVILL, James SELL, Andrew STENT, Carol SWAFFER, Sharon TEE, Beth TEMPEST, Alex TICKELL, Andrew John WINGATE, Emma WINGATE, Fran WYLDE.

See you all next week

Stella Hammond

 

We have just launched our Bushy parkrun Instagram site. Please use #bushyparkun when you post your photos instagram.com/bushyparkrun

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

and for parkrun UK on facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/parkrunuk
Interested in volunteering at Bushy parkrun? Please e-mail bushyhelpers@parkrun.com

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

Well that was all rather good fun wasn't it?

Bushy parkrun was one of over three hundred parkruns across the UK that took part in the #NHS70 celebrations. Apart from the dressing up - which we'll get too shortly - there was a slightly more serious side to the day which involved raising the awareness of parkrun within the NHS. Judging by the amount of tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram stories I saw coming from within the NHS it seems parkruns across the country achieved that, so a huge thank you to everyone who took part on Saturday.

As you can see from the photo below, we had a great turn out of people who really embraced the fancy dress element of the day.

And it wasn't just the humans who got dressed up. Someone from parkrun HQ clearly spotted Mollie the Collie in a picture and added her to their Instagram feed!

'Doctor' Simon was in charge on Saturday and he set everyone off from the top of his ladder at 9am sharp.

This week 1266 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 108 were first timers and 138 recorded new Personal Bests. We also had 23 people back for that difficult second parkrun... We hope everyone had a great time and we look forward to welcoming you back to Bushy again soon!

Volunteers

A HUGE thank you to all the volunteers for giving their time on Saturday morning so that over 1250 people could have their weekly parkrun fix. We're always on the lookout for more volunteers, we give you full training and it really can be quite good fun so if you'd like to help one week, simply drop the fantastic Pat a line at bushyhelpers@parkrun.com - many thanks to the following hi-viz heroes this week.

Jacob ATKINSON, Ray BAIRSTOW, Joy BELL, Mila BOKONJIC, Eva BOYD, Debbie BUTLER, Ray COWARD, Ann COWARD, Robert John DEAN, Mike DENNISON, Jonathan DICKINSON, Lorraine DILLAMORE, Janice FRANKS, Ray FRANKS, Christine FRY, Joanne GREEN, Keith HAWORTH, Melanie HOWES, Emilie HOWES, John HUTCHINGS, Lucy KATESMARK, Simon LANE, Margaret LE FRANC, Courtney LE FRANC, Catelin LE FRANC, Ally MANOLE, Jackie MCLELLEN, Robert MOREY, James MORRIS, Darrell NEWMAN, Martin NICHOLDS, Hannah PICKUP, Kit POWNEY, Simon R, Nicole RIEHL, Wendy ROBERTSON, James SELL, Julie SMITH, Emily May STAIN, Wendy STOKES, Carol SWAFFER, Malcolm J TAYLOR, Sharon TEE, Lucy THATCHER, Ben THERON, Mike TIVNEN, Harry VAUGHAN, Maisy VINCENT, Carole VINE

Milestones

Congratulations to Sue Howarth for joining the 250 club on Saturday and celebrating in true Bushy style with cakes, 250 themed biscuits and prosecco! 194 of Sue's 250 runs have been at Bushy with the rest spread over a large number of parks across the UK as Sue and Andy tour their way around the country.

Joining the 100 Club were Krzysztof DANIELAK on their first ever visit to Bushy and Jon DAWSON who has run 88 times at Bushy. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to catch up with Krzysztof but looking at his profile it looks like his home run is Zary in Poland - a very popular overseas parkrun for those looking to complete their parkrun alphabet!

We had a whole bunch of people joining the 50 club on Saturday, so huge congratulations to:
Rupert POSTLETHWAITE, Becky POSTLETHWAITE, Holly ANDREWS, Sandy ARMSTRONG, Sid EASTOE and Chris PLANT. We look forward to seeing you all in your bright red 50 t-shirts soon.

And last but by no means least, a huge well done to Chloe DENSLOW for joining the 10 junior club.

Next week is an exciting week for milestones as we will be welcoming Ciaran Murphy into the 500 club, only the 21st person to join this illustrious club. Looking forward to joining the celebrations after the run...

Top Age Gradings

Congratulations to everyone below for getting above 80% in the age gradings and a special shout out to Mark for getting over 90% and scoring a new PB at Bushy in the process as well as his fastest ever parkrun after 332 attempts!

Mark SYMES 90.89 %
Matt ATKINS 87.57 %
Paul GAYLOR 87.36 %
Claire GRIMA 83.30 %
Jonathan CORNISH 82.25 %
Darren BRADLEY 81.55 %
Bev HARTIGAN 81.52 %
Mike DENNISON 80.64%
Mimi OWEN 80.22%

You can see the full list of results here

Octogenarians

On 7th July, we're lucky enough to be hosting the second annual get together of parkrun Octogenarians - that's runners over 80 for you and me. The two organisers behind the day, George and Richard paid us a visit today to check we were all okay to host the day and Carol and Ann took the opportunity to check that they were fighting fit and ready to run their 5km.

Please do spread the word if you know anyone who's over 80 and fancies a run/walk or jog around our beautiful park that they will be in good company on the 7th July if they come that day.

A Bit More Fancy Dress to Finish Off

As I said right at the top, we had some amazing people who really got into the spirit of things. No idea if this was planned in advance but loving the traditional nursing outfits below - with either icecream or prosecco as your 'post run' refreshment of choice!

I absolutely LOVE this photo of Julie and our Elisabeth at 'Elisabeth's Corner' - lovely to see our most famous volunteer getting in the spirit of things on Saturday

Carol decided to give Jonny a quick check up before allowing him to volunteer this week. As you can see Wendy went to great lengths to join in with the fancy dress by wearing her protective boot!

And one final picture of our wonderful team of volunteers, runners and various other fancy dressed up participants. A huge thank you to Duncan for all the brilliant photos.

So that's it for this week. This Saturday for your entertainment we have pacers, as it's an even month we'll be offering even minute pacing from 20 up until about 34 minutes.

See you all Saturday

Rob

When you sign up to write the run report, there’s always a little nagging thought in the back of your mind – what are you going to write about this week? You always hope there’s going to be something big going on and I often scour the arriving crowds for signs of balloons or people setting up tables with cakes and champagne flutes as a sign that someone is celebrating a big milestone. Next week would be fine as it’s the big NHS 70 celebration so hopefully there will be 1200 people all dressed in amazing fancy dress – more of which later – but this week I was wondering what I’d be able to write about… and then I saw that Bruce Li's name was down on the list of volunteers as Photograper and I knew my troubles were over. No one is going to be reading what I’m prattling on about when they have Bruce’s amazing photos to look at.

We started Saturday off on a sad note as Ray informed everyone at the start of the sad news of the passing of Phil True who had run at Bushy on over 200 occasions since 2008. Apparently Phil adored Bushy park and especially loved his parkruns here. A number of his family were running on Saturday wearing Prostate Cancer t-shirts to honour his memory, they posted this picture on Facebook after the run.

Before the start we were honoured to have Sky Sports TV’s Stuart Amory doing the First Timer’s Briefing. Eagle eyed viewers of Sky Sports may have spotted him running alongside a rather nervous looking Jessica Ennis in the Vitality idents that feature before some programmes on Sky Sports. Stuart is rather publicity shy normally so I decided not to include his face in this picture – I’m sure he will appreciate this. Thanks for all your support Stuart, whether it’s briefing, marshalling or running…

I know we’ve said it before and I’m sure we’ll say it again, but we have amazing volunteers at Bushy and we really couldn’t put the event on each week without you. So while reading this, please do give a huge round of applause (quietly if you’re reading at work or in a library) to the following hi-viz heroes.

Andrew KENWARD • Anna SAVILL • Ben THERON • Benjamin ABLETT • Bethan STURDY • Bruce LI • Carmen PALMER • Carolyn FOSTER • Chris BRIMACOMBE • Christopher JOHNSON • Courtney LE FRANC • Daniel SHACKLETON • Darrell NEWMAN • Diane MULLEN • Donald BELL • Emilie HOWES • Ethan MULLEN • Glady GARTLAND • Harry VAUGHAN • Jacky SINCLAIR • James MORRIS • Jon TIBBETTS • Jonathan DICKINSON • Jonathan JONES • Joseph LANSDOWN • Josh MARS • Joy BELL • Julie SMITH • Katherine CURTIS TYLER • Kit POWNEY • Laura Helen MOSLEY • Lucy KATESMARK • Mack DOWNEY • Malcolm J TAYLOR • Margaret LE FRANC • Martin MILTON • Phil BLUER • Rachel GIBSON • Ray COWARD • Ray FRANKS • Richard VAN DER LEEDEN • Robert MOREY • Rodney Howard MCCULLOCH • Rupert POSTLETHWAITE • Samuel JONES • Sheila FERGUSSON • Stella HAMMOND • Stuart AMORY • Sue GRAHAM-KAHN • Tracey LENTHALL • Verity RIDING

Here's just a little selection of some of Bruce's amazing photos of our volunteers around and about on the course today:

An extra special mention should go to the brilliant Jonathan Dickinson who has not only volunteered on numerous occasions at Bushy and Bushy juniors but on Saturday decided to give a large number of people a healthy ‘nudge’ down in the results - by managing to forget to give out a chunk of 50 tokens. However this did mean that our wonderful Run Director Ray was able to step in and promote those same people 50 positions back up the results by the time they were published. So if you were wondering why you thought you finished in the 1300s but your email says 1200 and something, that’s why. Jonny is officially the nicest man in the world though so I know nobody would hold it against him for even a second…

Travelling all the way from Durham on the occasion of his 250th run was Graham Middleton, who amazingly also visited Bushy when he completed his 100th run back in February 2014. Graham’s visit to Bushy was actually delayed by eight weeks due to an injury and then volunteering until he could fit the trip in down here. Hope you had a great visit Graham and we look forward to seeing you sometime in 2023 for your 500th celebration!

The eagle eyed amongst you may have thought it was a fancy dress week this week if you’d seen Andy & Iggy before the start, although what you might have thought the theme was I have no idea. These guys are training for a run/swim event in the Lake District next weekend and so BEFORE parkrun this morning had – met at the Pheasantry at 5am, run to the lake in Shepperton, swum a ridiculous number of times aroud the lake and then run back to Bushy Park to finish it off with a 5km. Kind of puts my pathetic warm up routine in perspective a little bit…

This week 1313 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 115 were first timers and 151 recorded new Personal Bests. Passing various landmarks were:

No one reached the 500 milestone mark this week but we’re only two weeks away from the next member of the coveted 500 club. When discussing after Saturday’s run which day he would be reaching his 500, Ciaran Murphy was heard to say it was a Saturday…

The aforementioned Graham was the only person to reach 250 runs.

Amazingly nobody joined the 100 club but nine of you did join the 50 club, so big congratulations to:
Vanessa BURRELL, Nick CULLEN, Matthew THOMAS, Andy STRONG, Nicole SKIPPINS, Lois JERREY, Edward WRIGHT, David STEPHENS, Andrew RONKSLEY

And last but by no means least, joining the 10 club for juniors was Nicolas CRIFASI, Jared COUGHLIN and Barnaby COX

Five people topped the coveted 80% age grading this week, so many congratulations to:

Robert MCHARG 84.79 %
Pamela WHITTER 84.74 %
Merran SELL 81.78 %
Mara YAMAUCHI 81.24 %
Maddy WHITMAN 80.39 %
The full list of results can be seen on our website.

As I mentioned right at the start, we were really lucky enough to have Bruce visiting us on Saturday morning, he really does take some amazing pictures - even if he does always ask you to jump in the air for him! I've picked a bunch of my favourites below, but you can see all of them on his Flickr link here

The Before

The Start

The run itself

Elisabeth!

The After Party

Next Week

Don't forget next week we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the NHS. parkruns up and down the country will be donning fancy dress and saying thank you to all the hard working people of the NHS. We're also trying to raise awareness of parkrun amongst the NHS and hopefully we'll be having teams of people from local Trusts, hospitals and Clinical Commissioning Groups taking part next week. We would love it if you wanted to dress up or if that's not your kind of thing, please think about wearing blue - nice and easy for our runners with 500 runs under their belts!

So that’s it for another week, I hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday morning. Look forward to seeing you all next Saturday in your finest NHS fancy dress or blue t-shirts and let me leave you with this image of Run Director Ray and wife Ann, over 800 volunteering stints between them. Amazing!

Fast and Numerous

After last week’s foray onto the old course to avoid the prospect of a starting line up gathering among the Chestnut Sunday marquees, we were back to the Butterfly course which we have now been using for just over 3 years. Whilst last weekend’s glorious sunshine was absent this week, what we did get were ideal running conditions which were probably a large contributory factor to bumper haul of PB’s and a new Butterfly course record! 51 cheerful and efficient volunteers helped organise the 1390 participants (in the top 10 of our most populous events list!) and visitors from far and wide including some Moonwalkers from Newport.
Run Director Ray Coward addresses the 1390 participants at the start line

Many thanks to all of the 51 volunteers ensuring another smooth successful event; they were:-

Amy ROBERTSON, Annie MCINTOSH, Benjamin ABLETT, Bethan STURDY, Carol DICKINSON, Carol SWAFFER, Catelin LE FRANC, Catherine STENSON, Chris BRIMACOMBE, Christine FRY, Courtney LE FRANC, Darrell NEWMAN, David BREWIN, David PAPWORTH, Dean FURBER, Diane MULLEN, Emilie HOWES, Emily May STAIN, Ethan MULLEN, Ethan SCOTT, Evie HINDE, Freya MORRISON, Glady GARTLAND, Harry VAUGHAN, Jack KENNEDY, Jacob ATKINSON, James SELL, Janice FRANKS, Jennifer MELBOURNE, Jessica TUCKMAN, Julie SMITH, Lucy KATESMARK, Maisy VINCENT, Martin MILTON, Michael TROTT, Mike DENNISON, Mike LAPWORTH, Phil BLUER, Polly ADAMS, Ray COWARD, Ray FRANKS, Richard VAN DER LEEDEN, Rob MACALISTER, Robert MOREY, Simon R, Steve MILLER, Susan HOWARTH, Timothy JACOB, Trevor MITCHELL, Wendy STOKES, Zoe Alison FAIZ

A quick reminder that our Parkrun events are totally dependent on securing a team of volunteers; there’s a wide range of roles to choose from, it’s great fun and you get to meet lots of great people and the gratitude from the participants makes it an incredibly uplifting experience. So, to the uninitiated, I would strongly urge you to Send Pat an email at bushyhelpers@parkrun.com if you fancy having a turn. You could….

Hand Tokens Out...

Right hand out, ready to receive your tokens!

Scan Finish Tokens and Barcodes...

It takes more than a broken foot to prevent Wendy Stokes from carrying out her scanning duties!

Sort The Tokens...

1390 finish tokens in the process of getting an initial sort. None went missing this week, so well done participants, well done volunteers!

Time the runners...

Timer Jack Kennedy clicks John Hanscombe’s 575th parkrun finish.

Or Simply Pose for Pictures with Other Famous Celebrities (Oh, and direct the event!)

Personal Bests

Firm ground and a pleasant breeze allowed runners to cool down without slowing down, and this led to an admirable 206 PB’s this week, of which 3 were captured by members of the 250 club, Mike Dennison, Zoe Faiz and David Gannon (who took 25 seconds off a PB that was only 3 weeks old).

Zoe and Mike, who have clocked up 317 and 313 parkruns respectively celebrate their impressive PB’s
12 of the PB’s obtained on Saturday were obtained by members of the 100 club, so many congratulations to:-
Kirsty KOTHAKOTA, David POPE, Helen NANCE, Kathryn DONKERSLEY, James STEP, Robert BRICOUT, Brian CAMERON, Judith CAMERON, Naomi BERRY, Jenna WHISTLER, Matthew NEWBERRY and Jennifer KOONTZ

First Finishers

Men
A blistering time of 14:52 saw Bradley Goater set a new “Butterfly Course” record today, as well as putting him at no 14 in the fastest Bushy Parkrun Men’s list, comfortably ahead of Sir Mo! (Sorry, no photo, Bradley had already warmed down, stretched out, grabbed a coffee from the cafe and left the park before I crossed the line and grabbed my camera).

1. Bradley Goater 14:52 – New PB
2. Andrius Jaksevicius 15:40
3. Colin High 15:56 – New PB

Women
We had a clean sweep of ladies registering PB’s on our podium today

1. Isabel Brinsden 17:30 – New PB!
2. Hanah Knapton 18:55 – New PB!
3. Gemma Carter 19:16 – New PB!

Young men

1. Kiran Lathia Hamblin – 18:58
2. Matthew Tyas – 19:13
3. Ross Hyde - 19:45

Young women

1. Isabel Livesey 19:29
2. Olivia Gross – 20:44
3. Charlotte Dawson – 21:42

Milestones

There were no new members of the 500 or 250 clubs this week

10 (Junior milestone)
Will CHETWYND-STAPYLTON
Tabitha JEFFERIES

50
Andrew BITHRAY
Ian DUTNALL
Spencer MITCHELL
Peter MIDDLEWICK
Ava SHACKLADY
Stephen JARMAN
Elspeth SAVILLE
Jane HARRIS

100
Glynis APPLEBY
Jennifer KOONTZ
Mark A INGHAM
Helen Cathryn TAYLOR
Andrew BARTON

Glynis Appleby made the trip from Newport with 5 of her friends to not only celebrate her 100th parkrun at the cradle, but also take part in the Moonwalk Marathon that was starting from Clapham Common at midnight that evening.

Left to right, Tracy, Louise, Glynis, (celebrating her 100th), Vicki, Dee and Tracy.
Dee later reported that the moonwalk was a strenuous challenge overcoming the extra time on your feet walking a marathon as opposed to running one, but the volunteer teams and the large amount of money raised for Breast Cancer charities made it all worthwhile. By the way, if anyone’s interested in next year’s event, did you know that men are also permitted to enter? (They do need to wear bra’s, but given the good cause, I’m sure that won’t be an issue; apparently they are useful for storing water bottles and gels!)

WAVA Age Grading
There were a tenacious ten runners achieving a WAVA age grade above the magical 80% today. Five of these runners also achieved PB’s; Well done to:-

Parkrunner                    Time        Age Cat       Grade
Olivia Gross                    20:44     JW10            98.47%
Bradley Goater               14:52      SM20-24      86.77%
Gary Neville                    18:37      VM55-59      85.41%
Andrius Jaksevicius        15:40      VM35-39      85.21%
Isabel rinsden                 17:32      SW25-29     84.41%
Merran Sell                     28:23      VW70-74     82.50%
Mike Dennison               19:35       VM60-64      81.87%
Colin High                       15:56       SM30-34     81.59%
David Williamson            18:13       VM50-54    80.97%
Jamie Mcloughlin            17:22      VM40-44     80.42%

See you all next Saturday when it’s rumored that Harry and Meghan will not be taking part in a pre-wedding lap around our Royal Park (although we did have 2 Harry's running and 1 volunteering this week!)

Chris Brimacombe
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Interested in volunteering at Bushy parkrun? Please e-mail bushyhelpers@parkrun.com

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