Blink and another junior parkrun has whizzed by! It definitely felt like it was over in a flash this morning. We had 24 runners join us up on Mount Gedders this morning and for the first time ever, we had more volunteers than runners!! Maybe everyone was out Christmas shopping or put off by the forecast of wind and rain? It was lovely out... big blue skies, a bit of a breeze, but pretty darned nice for a run even so!

So, who were all those wonderful volunteers? Well, we had Evie and Anysha stepping in at the last minute to act as time keepers; Matthew, Tamsin, Madeleine, Jonathan, Joanne, Steve, Karen, Jim, Julie, Nick, Bo, Madeleine, Eloise and Jake acting as marvellous marshals; Sammy and James scanning barcodes; Zoe and Ewan on finish funnel duty; Henry, Helen, Laurence and Ted tail walking the course; Matilda taking photos; Felix sorting tokens and me, Sarah, trying to keep everything running vaguely smoothly!

That's 27 volunteers vs. 24 runners! Just shows what a team it takes to get our juniors running each Sunday morning, doesn't it? Even if there were only a couple of runners, we'd still need a full roster to go ahead safely. Speaking of which, if you'd like to volunteer for future weeks, why not drop us a line to gedlingjuniors@parkrun.com and I'll pop you on the roster.

I have a couple of special mentions this morning. Firstly, Ewan, who was presented with a parkrun water bottle today for having volunteered the most this past year. He's made a huge difference to us at Gedling juniors and, while we appreciate everything our volunteers do, Ewan goes the extra mile - turning up early to set up the course, helping out with our Duke of Edinburgh volunteers, taking on the Run Director role etc - and he's still an under-18 himself. What a superstar!

Also superstars this morning were Evie, Anysha, James and Sam, all of whom took on timing and barcode scanning using the parkrun app which we've never used before. And why did we choose today to use it? Well, because I'm a bit hopeless and didn't check to see if I'd got the timers and scanners in the bag this morning! Whoops! Thank you to you all for making a difference today.

Our runners were also pretty darned awesome too. Our first finishers for boys and girls were Lewis and Sienna. Cassius, Safeeya, Paige and Seb earned themselves new personal bests this morning. Plus, George and Henry joined us for the very first time - so a warm welcome to you both and we'll look forward to seeing you again soon! There weren't any milestone wristbands to hand out today, but if you have done 11, 21 or 50 runs, make sure you let the Run Director know and you'll be awarded your half marathon, marathon or ultra marathon band, which we always love to give out.

Rightie ho, that's me done for the week. Next week Tamsin is steering the good ship Gedling juniors. We've only got two more junior parkruns until Christmas and then we'll be taking a little break until the New Year when we start again on the 5th of January.

Happy running all!

Sarah H-F

We have been looking forwards to the beginning of December in our house for a little while, which is why the first words I heard this morning were "Pinch, punch, first of the month" accompanied by strikes on the arm and then the words "Can I open my advent calendar now?!"

I'll be honest, I hadn't slept all that well. I knew there was a genuine possibility I'd have to cancel the event and I don't think I was on my own, as I wasn't even the first member of the core team out there, inspecting the course. Not an easy decision, but we called it and we decided to go ahead.

After the course inspection, I had a fairly easy morning. I got to hand over Run Director Duties to Ewan, knowing he'd do a great job! We're very lucky at Gedling Juniors to have such a team of bright, enthusiastic under 18's regularly involved. Ewan set up the funnel, handed out all the jobs, briefed anyone who needed to be briefed. Gave the volunteer brief, briefed the runners, led the warm up, started the runners off, handled the un-scannables, helped me manage a minor incident, closed down the course at the end and then he came over to the cafe and processed the results, too! So, I don't have much of a problem in declaring Ewan to be today's MVP.

Or at least I didn't until a little bird told me today was also Sarah HG's 50th time as volunteer coordinator, which means she's helped to fill over 1000 roles for 50 events!

And then I started feeling bad for trying to pick an MVP, so this week's Most Valued Players are everyone; Louis ASTILL, Sharon ASTILL, Frances ASTILL, Damian BENNER, Tom BLAKEY, Jake BROUGHTON, Chris COE, Laurence COE, Nicola DICKINSON, Julie DRIVER, Ann FISH, Eveline GRIFFITH, Sarah HORRIGAN-FULLARD, Sammy KING, Matthew MARSHALL, James MARTIN, Steve MARTIN, Richard MILLNS, Bo NOWICKI, Isabella RIELEY, Joanne TANNER, Zoe TANNER, Jonathan TANNER, Ewan WANE, James WILKINS and Emma BENNER.

No first timers with us this week, but a few milestones achieved. Oscar and David both qualified for the half marathon wristbands and Evan collected his Ultra Marathon wristband. Well done guys. If you think you've recently achieved a milestone but forgot to collect your wristband, please let us know.

One of the many, many things I love about junior parkrun (and it's 5k sister - it'll never catch on, though) is how many of you and your parents looked outside on this cold and frosty morning and said "yeah, I'm up for that!". 32 of you put on your kit, lined up and set off on a cold, dark, December morning. Your energy and enthusiasm in infectious!

Six of you even managed to achieve PBs this morning. well done Harrison, Oliver, Charlie, Oscar, Beatrice and Ethan. That's about 20% of the field.

That wraps it up for me, for this week. I'll be handing the baton over to Sarah HG for next week.

A big thank you to everyone who joined us at Gedling junior parkrun this morning. We had 64 runners and their grown ups as well as an amazing 30 volunteers!

We welcomed 9 "tourists" who had not been to Gedling junior parkrun before so hello to Cole, Joshua, Daniel, Jack, Dougie, Rory, Thomas, Joshua and Andrew who were all visiting us from other local junior parkruns at Hucknall, Worksop and Newark.

There were not any wristbands to hand out this week but do let us know when you have reached your 11th (half marathon), 21st (marathon) or 50th (ultra marathon) junior parkruns.

Well done to Olivia, Seth, Gilbert, Poppy, Charlie, Isla, River, Max, Connie, Joshua, Reuben, Will, Leo, Scarlett, Alberto, Jasper and Charley who all achieved a personal best this week.

We have 2 main ingredients to a successful junior parkrun - our runners of course but also our fantastic volunteers. On Friday evening we were very short of volunteers and thought that we would have to cancel this week but our local community stepped in and we had a fantastic team to cheer you on around the course and do all the necessary jobs around the finish funnel. So a big thank you to Laurence and Tom who were keeping time, Jake and Sammy scanning the bar codes helped by Isabella, James managing the funnel, Ewan handing out the tokens, Oliver and Louise tail walking and the magnificent marshals were Steve, Bo, Jenny, Claire, Chris, Max, Jenny, Peter, Emma, Martin, Laura, Lucy, Eveline, Karen, Neil, Nick, Josephine, Matthew and William.

Ewan also led the warm up, it is 2 years since he first started volunteering with us. He was only suppose to be here for 26 weeks as part of his Duke of Edinburgh award but 2 years on he is still here and rarely misses a week! So a big thank you to Ewan from us all.

If you would like to volunteer in any future weeks please do let Sarah, our volunteer coordinator, know at gedlingjuniors@parkrun.com to avoid us having any last minute panics about not having enough volunteers!

See you soon

Helen

I've been really looking forward to run directing this run. I love dressing up! I was so pleased so many of you got into the spirit for our spooky Halloween special too! I went for the scariest thing I could think of; a real apex predator! The silent killer of the deep. Death incarnate. A Great White shark! Imagine how deflated I felt when you lot started singing Baby Shark at me!

We are very grateful to the terrifying team who made this event happen: Linda ALLEN, Emma BENNER, Damian BENNER, Tom BLAKEY, Jake BROUGHTON, Laurence COE, Chris COE, John ENGLAND, Tom ENGLAND, Ann FISH, Matilda FRANKLIN, Neil Scott FRANKLIN, Sarah HORRIGAN-FULLARD, Matthew MARSHALL, Steve MARTIN, James MARTIN, Ted SELBY, Joanne TANNER, Zoe TANNER, Jonathan TANNER, Judith TOWNEND, Alice TOWNEND, Ewan WANE, Julie WEBSTER. Special thanks to Emma, who stepped in at short notice as a tailwalker (and provided her own tail), to Alice who did double duty as a marshal sprinting from marshal point 2 to marshal point 13; and to Ewan who led the warm up, set up the funnel and also did the umpteen other things Ewan does for us every week.

Three mistakes happened this week that I will confess to. The first was I forgot the big tub of sweets I'd intended to hand out for all you trick or treaters. I guess next week it'll have to be tricks! (sorry Tamsin).

The second mistake was I got my words the wrong way around and said parkrun was a race and not a run. NAUGHTY SHARK! BAD SHARK! I have had to sit on the step for 43 minutes this afternoon to think about my actions.

I got to give Seb Sanderson his wristband for completing 50 junior parkruns - What a star! If you're reading this, I suspect you already know that's the equivalent of an ultra marathon. I missed out on the opportunity to give a half marathon wristband to George and a marathon wristband to Esme Cope. Maybe one of the other run directors will have that honour in the coming weeks.

After the warm up led by Ewan, we led you over to the start, corrected myself that it's a run and not a race and you were off!

You did an amazing job! For me, this week wasn't really about going fast, but having fun! I hope the four of you who joined us for the first time had fun.

There were another four of you who managed to get a new PB this morning including your first finisher, Ben Taylor. Your highest placed finisher this week by age grading was Megan Taylor, with an age grading of 71.58% in the JW11-14 group. If you're not sure what that means, it means she's quick! Really, really quick!

My absolute, hands down, favourite bit from this morning was having young Gabriel, dressed as a very cool Spider-Man, ditch the finish line to run towards me instead, singing Baby Shark. Happy 5th birthday, Gabriel!

Which is what got me through Mistake No. 3, which was all to do with results processing. I'll not burden you with the details, but hopefully most of you now have your results! Five of you may still be waiting. If this is you, reach out to us and we'li do our best to recover your time.

Next week Tamsin will be leading an intrepid team of volunteers If you want to join in the fun, get in touch!

This week Fyfe and I had our felt tips out to have a go at creating a totally-to-scale map of our new course. It's a work in progress but two things will become apparent if you look closely. One is that if it's to scale, that duck in the pond must be massive! The other is that I really can't draw cows. Anyway, I half-thought we'd have to leave it in the car, but the weather was loads better than expected.

This week we were joined by six first timers and two tourists visiting for the first time. A massive welcome to Louie, William, Seth, Will, Matilda, Ella, Libby and Silvie. we hope you had a great time and that we'll see you again some time very soon. By the way, Ella has the distinction of being the 1234th runner at Gedling Juniors.

Well done to Hannah on achieving and collecting her marathon wristband. What an achievement! Don't forget to print off the certificate and show your teacher. I see we have some more milestones.

After a warm-up led by Sammy and Ewan you were off! 65 of you crossed the line this morning. The first back was Finn, closely followed by Reece, Lewis and Jack; all three of whom got a new PB.

They weren't on their own though! 14 of you got PBs this week!

We are very grateful to the volunteers who made this event happen: Damian Benner, Jake Broughton, Catriona Buckley, Sonny Chapman, Laurence Coe (and his Dad), Nicola Dickinson, Tom England, Josephine Franklin, Martha Franklin, Sammy King, Matthew Marshall, William Martin, Lucy Martin, Tamsin Millns, Richard Millns, Kelly Morphus, Bo Nowicki, Jolene Sanderson, Oliver Sanderson, Jonathan Tanner, Joanne Tanner, Zoe Tanner, Alice Townend, Ewan Wane and the ever-vigilant Sarah Horrigan-Fullard who coordinates all this.

Your run director next week will be Nick. If you'd like to join Nick on Team Awesome (and why wouldn't you; it's awesome!) then email the office.