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