We had a great day Up Pomphrey! on Saturday. The weather was ideal for the 279 of you who took on Mr Hill, and 31 of you achieved a PB! Well done to all of you.

 Janet JENKINS • Thelma GARNER • William LEE • Catalina LEE • Debra PARSONS • Vic GARNER • Ian JONES • Andrew KING • Rose BURCHILL • Stephanie EVANS • Ris SCOTT • Yvonne COX • Yvonne LOGAN • Stephen JENKINS • Nick CREW • Barbara SULLIVAN • Michelle FRANCIS • Michael FRANCIS • Donna TOON • Adam TOON • Gary WOODRUFF • Sam WELLS • Tina HOWE • James DORRELL • Kevin RICKERBY • Matthew LEESON

 William delivered the brief to our new visitors and first time runners 

There were 6 parkrunners lined up at the start about to embark on their 50th Milestone parkrun; congratulations to Robert Ashton who has volunteered twice at parkrun and run 32 times at Pomphrey Hill; Faye Pollinger is a super-speedy vegan junior who has completed 47 out of her 50 runs at our course; Gavin Versaci has also volunteered twice with us has never strayed (yet!) to another parkrun; Paul Taylor has completed 38 of his 50 Up Pomphrey!; our unmissable duo of Tailwalkers, Sam Wells & Tina Howe, have volunteered 11 and 5 times respectively and while Sam has notched up 44 of her runs with us Tina has done 42. We're sure you'll all look fabulous in your new red Milestone t-shirts!

Lucy Chandler who has volunteered an amazing 105 times at parkrun (thank you so much for doing so much for parkrun Lucy), qualified for her 100th Milestone celebration t-shirt. Well done and well deserved!

You Pomps people are wonderfuI when it comes to cue in the runners' brief for you to shout out Up Pomphrey! You excelled yourselves on Saturday though in your response to the call for a MEXICAN WAVE - from where I was standing it was just brilliant!!!

The tale about Tina the tailwalker's tail and the dog... Tina had chosen to sport the grey furry tail as Tailwalker. As she and Sam approached the pond on their first lap, her dog encountered her (was being walked by her other half) and bit off her tail! Luckily no harm was done and the tail lives to tell another tale

Special Events

Next week, the 14th December, is Pomphrey Hill parkrun's 300th event - whoopie!!! Our theme for this is "Time to Shine" so time to show off your sequins & satins, diamonds & pearls, tiaras and lights or anything else you can think of.  You are, of course, very welcome to bring a celebration cake or two too!!

The following week, as our last week before Christmas it’s the annual Christmas dress up event. We love to see turkeys, reindeers, Santa’s and elves running around our course. Alternatively don a ‘bah humbug’ hat and enjoy the run as usual.

Christmas Day – we will be hosting an extra mid-week Christmas day parkrun at 9am. This will only be possible if we have a full roster by the 21^st December. The build up to Christmas is busy enough without having to recruit volunteers at the 11^th hour, so please volunteer yourself or unsuspecting family members in advance!

And that's all for now folks! See you all next week,

Catalina Lee
Run Director

Pomphrey Hill parkrun
Event number 299
7th December 2019

This week 279 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 21 were first timers and 31 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 33 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 26 volunteers.

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Pomphrey Hill parkrun Results Page.

The male record is held by Patrick MARTIN who recorded a time of 15:37 on 4th February 2017 (event number 156).
The female record is held by Charlotte Emily TAYLOR-GREEN who recorded a time of 18:00 on 27th October 2018 (event number 243).
The Age Grade course record is held by Caroline LAVIS who recorded 86.86% (26:30) on 12th October 2019 (event number 291).

Pomphrey Hill parkrun started on 1st March 2014. Since then 10,108 participants have completed 71,119 parkruns covering a total distance of 355,595 km, including 13,061 new Personal Bests. A total of 1,048 individuals have volunteered 6,851 times.

Pomphrey Hill parkrun - Event #298 - 30/11/2019

This weeks run report was kindly submitted by our very own Run Director Meryl Grimshaw. Thanks Meryl... take it away.

A chilly parkrun where for the first time we had to truly check for ice and make sure the leaves on the tarmac hill were not going to cause issues. Volunteers arrived bundled up to withstand the cold temperatures and runners arrived ready to shed layers as they warmed up. Only the truly brave wore shorts and those completing milestones were grateful for an extra layer of celebratory bib.

Those donning an extra layer included:
Chris Thorne – Chris completed his 25^th volunteer stint this week. Chris has really enjoyed his volunteering once as a tail walker, mostly as a marshal, occasionally helping to close down the event and today handing out tokens. We look forward to seeing Chris in his new purple shirt from parkrun.
Runners earning the coveted scarlet shirt were Andrew Phillips, Alasdair Watson and Alison Gunn. Alison was a tourist with us today, thank you for travelling to Pomphrey Hill to complete your 50^th parkrun.
Runners earning the coveted Black shirt were Joe Adams, Julie Castle, Mandy Collier-King and Jackie Thorne. Joe has run 70 of his 100 parkruns with us at Pomphrey Hill, Mandy 81 of 100 but Julie wins the prize for passionista, with 99 of her 100 runs at Pomphrey. Jackie and her cheering crew from Staple Hill runners, wore white shirts, ran and sang their way around the 3 laps of Pomphrey Hill. Culminating her run with Chris giving her the finish token.
No special milestone t-shirt but certainly worth a mention, Ian Tiley ran his 300^th parkrun with us today. Those of us who have been at Pomphrey for a while will remember Ian finishing his 100^th run with a dive in his cricket whites back in July 2015; today, thankfully, Ian finished on his feet.

We had 30 first timers to Pomphrey Hill today, 8 were completing their first ever parkrun while the remaining 22 were tourists. Some were kind enough to write in our visitors’ book:
Wonderful course – each lap doesn’t feel like a mile! Flew round. Nice hill. – Nick, Croydon Harriers
Greetings from Spirit of Monmouth running club and Forest of Dean & Newport parkrun. Wonderful course & great volunteers. Thanks x

A special mention should go to those regulars who this week achieved a personal best. One of the 35 new PBs recorded today was the 13,000th PB at Pomphrey Hill parkrun so do give yourselves all a pat on the back!

The event was made possible by 26 volunteers:
Steven BURGE • Janet JENKINS • Megan GRIMSHAW • Anne BURGE • Alyssa GRIMSHAW • Meryl GRIMSHAW • Chris THORNE • Claire LEWIN • Ian JONES • Elisabeth HIPPE-HEISLER • Philip MCWILLIAMS • Caroline MILKINS • Stephen JENKINS • Stewart CUNDY • Peter ATKINSON • Philip RILEY • Molly CHILTON • Martyn POOLE • Michele COOK • Gary WOODRUFF • Sam WELLS • Tina HOWE • James DORRELL • Mandy ROBINSON • Nancy SHELTON • Mike DIMOND-JONES

Can you believe we need just 60 volunteers to complete the volunteer roster for the remainder of the year? This would enable us to put on a safe, timed run every Saturday and Christmas day. So that means, if just one fifth of those who ran this week put their name down once in December the volunteer roster would be FULL. Please do consider giving our parkrun this early Christmas gift.

Future Events

In 2 weeks’ time, we will be having our 300^th parkrun at Pomphrey Hill. Our theme for this is “Time to Shine” – so please wear your shiniest outfits, bright lights and anything else you can think of appropriate to the theme. We look forward to seeing how many ways this theme can be interpreted.

The following week, as our last week before Christmas it’s the annual Christmas dress up event. We love to see turkeys, reindeers, Santa’s and elves running around our course. Alternatively don a ‘bah humbug’ hat and enjoy the run as usual.

Christmas Day – we will be hosting an extra mid-week Christmas day parkrun at 9am. This will only be possible if we have a full roster by the 21^st December. The build up to Christmas is busy enough without having to recruit volunteers at the 11^th hour, so please volunteer yourself or unsuspecting family members in advance!

Until next week, and with thanks to our wonderful Run Director this week, Steven Burge.

 

Thanks for an amazing run report Meryl, its lovely.

Until next time guys, take care.

Steven Burge - Run Director.

 

Pomphrey Hill parkrun
Event number 298
30th November 2019

This week 304 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 30 were first timers and 35 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 31 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 26 volunteers:
Steven BURGE • Janet JENKINS • Megan GRIMSHAW • Anne BURGE • Alyssa GRIMSHAW • Meryl GRIMSHAW • Chris THORNE • Claire LEWIN • Ian JONES • Elisabeth HIPPE-HEISLER • Philip MCWILLIAMS • Caroline MILKINS • Stephen JENKINS • Stewart CUNDY • Peter ATKINSON • Philip RILEY • Molly CHILTON • Martyn POOLE • Michele COOK • Gary WOODRUFF • Sam WELLS • Tina HOWE • James DORRELL • Mandy ROBINSON • Nancy SHELTON • Mike DIMOND-JONES

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Pomphrey Hill parkrun Results Page.

The male record is held by Patrick MARTIN who recorded a time of 15:37 on 4th February 2017 (event number 156).

The female record is held by Charlotte Emily TAYLOR-GREEN who recorded a time of 18:00 on 27th October 2018 (event number 243).

The Age Grade course record is held by Caroline LAVIS who recorded 86.86% (26:30) on 12th October 2019 (event number 291).

 

Pomphrey Hill parkrun started on 1st March 2014. Since then 10,087 participants have completed 70,840 parkruns covering a total distance of 354,200 km, including 13,030 new Personal Bests. A total of 1,046 individuals have volunteered 6,825 times.

Many thanks to Martyn Poole who has kindly written this week’s run report.

This Autumn has been one of the wettest I can remember.  With the turn in weather and the Rugby games there has been a slight knock in runners over the past few weeks, however, I would like to thank the 277 who ran, jogged and walked Pomphrey in the wet. Thank you for making it out of your nice cosy beds to brave the morning. 
Alongside our runners were the 25 Hi-Vis Heroes, as a runner myself this morning you kept me going and smiling with shouts and claps of encouragement and for that I personally thank you as I am sure the other runners would too.

The event was made possible by 25 volunteers:

Chris THORNE • William LEE • Ian JONES • Andrew KING • Rose BURCHILL • Sian HARRIS • Andrew BOYNTON • Ris SCOTT • Daniel SMITH • Julia EDWARDS • Stephen JENKINS • Trudy REED • Lynn DAVIS • John RICE • Steve COPPER • Martyn POOLE • Barbara SULLIVAN • Sally GARNETT • Gary WOODRUFF • Sam WELLS • Tina HOWE • James DORRELL • Nikki RICE • Jackie RICE • Sam LOCKHART

Thank you all for your help today, parkrun would not be possible without your valuable help.  If you would like to help out and give something back, please click the link below

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/pomphreyhill/futureroster/

From the 277 people we had 27 first timers who I must admit were a little quiet this morning when it came to announcing themselves. There were 31 recorded PBs and we had representation from 30 different clubs.

STATS (Because I love stats)

Lee Gawler was our leading male runner with a time of 18:27 for his 98th parkrun, Rachel Stowell was our leading lady who came in with an impressive time of 21:05 for her 27th parkrun.

Of our 31 PB’s Tim Clothier set our highest of the day coming in 5th with a new PB at Pomphrey at a time of 19:24, Well done Tim!
The runner today with the highest amount of runs is Andrew Russell with an impressive 329 parkruns

We had one milestone, congratulations to junior Harry Walsh on his 10th parkrun,  Sharon Hicks is only 5 runs from her 250th, Joe Adams and Jackie Thorne is 1 run from 100 and Andrew Phillips, Gavin Versaci, Alasdair Watson, Barnaby Cauwood, Sam Walls and Tina Howe are 1 from 50th.
If all those people turn up to Pomphrey next week, we would have 8 milestones to celebrate! (come see me as I’m Photographer that day)

Neil Evans today ran an unofficial milestone and his 50th at Pomphrey hill from 87 in total.  Neil promises to bring in some cakes next week to celebrate

I would now like to move onto a new piece I like to call! Knowing me, Knowing you!

I’ll see how the feedback comes back for this and if its positive I would like to include it every time I volunteer to write the run report. This piece would be an interview with myself and some of the runners whose names and faces you will always see at Pomphrey. 
I did think of starting with myself but there was a link to my blog a couple of weeks ago which had a massive piece about what parkrun meant to me.  (please check it out)

Anyway this week I spoke to everyone’s top 9 favourite RD, Steven Burge

Knowing me, knowing you Steven Burge 

 

Steve is one of those faces you will always see at Pomphrey, you will usually find him chatting to everyone and always has a smile on his face. Steve is a massive advocate for parkrun and how can we ever celebrate Star Wars and talk like a pirate day without him! You would also see his wife and fellow runner Anne who usually around to supervise Steve (I mean help), they met at a running club and got married two years ago in November 2017.

Steve has run an impressive 271 parkruns of which 158 have been at Pomphrey Hill.  He has been running Pomphrey since 2014 and his PB was actually earlier on this year on 23rd March with a time of 22:17.

Luckily for my readers I have removed all the naughty words said by Steve during my 1-2-1 interview

How many parkruns have you ran?
150 ish at Pomphrey (close) and 268 total (close again Steve)

How did you start your parkrun journey?
At the Little Stoke inaugural run alongside CBE and founder of parkrun, Paul Sinton Hewitt, I have always loved running and instantly feel in love with parkrun.

How long before you did your first volunteer?
I don’t think it was long, I would probably say about 20 runs and Pomphrey Hill was on the verge of starting and I was involved in the original team for that.

What was your first volunteer role?
Timekeeper! I enjoy timekeeper, I know it puts a lot of people off but I really enjoy it and find it easy.

Did you make a mistake?
I did make a massive blooper when barcode scanning where I was scanning all over the place and in any order.

When did you become an RD?
Christmas Eve, you know that picture of me going round dressed as Santa? I was stitched right up as there was 400/500 runners.

How many have you done since?
21

What are your words of wisdom to anyone wishing to start up parkrun?
Don’t be scared, come along with an open mind. If you don’t like running then volunteer, parkrun is brilliant

What would you say to new runners who many have been put off by things like bad weather?
It's a lot easier in this weather then the summer, just keep turning up and eventually you will love it.

Thank you for your time Steve, if you would like to be featured next time, come see me.  Otherwise I will start picking people at random!

Finally before I go I caught up with Tracey Paling and her guide runner Alivia Harvey

Alivia has been helping runners who need a guide for the past 18 months, she signed up not long after running next to a guide runner during a marathon and wanted to give it a try so joined the Bristol VI Runners.

Tracey loves being out and about on a Saturday morning, while certain areas are more difficult then others, she loves the flats but hills can be tiring and isn’t helped by being diabetic. Tracey has been running for three years in March when the group she belongs to was formed.

I asked how was running in weather like today had been and Tracey’s immediate response was it was enjoyable.  Alivia stated that there was only one small stumble and then joked about having to prepare Tracey to catch her.  Tracey then went onto saying about being steered towards puddles and mud but its all enjoyable and fun.

Tracey loves all weathers and now knows Pomphrey’s route very well.  She has run at five other parkruns including Severn Bridge and Somerdale Pavilion.
Tracey has different guides and each guide has a different running style which is noticeable. Some being chattier than others which is nice however you can get lost in discussion and the guide can forget to mention dips or hazards.  Tracey is now used to Alivia pushing and pulling her to avoid trip hazards and this is the norm for any run.
Alivia guides a couple of other people who are local to Pomphrey and Tracey comes from Stockport via a lift where she meets up with Alivia.

Alivia also mentions that while she only guides a few there is a difference with different runners especially when it comes to pace.

If anyone wants to get involved with guiding they are always looking out for new helpers.  Please search for the VI Runners Bristol.

Before I leave you, I have come across a 3rd party App for my iPhone which tracks all my runs, map of the world showing every parkrun and includes challenges and milestones.  If anyone is interested it’s called “5K parkrunner results” (unfortunately I am not on commission)

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Pomphrey Hill parkrun Results Page.

The male record is held by Patrick MARTIN who recorded a time of 15:37 on 4th February 2017 (event number 156).
The female record is held by Charlotte Emily TAYLOR-GREEN who recorded a time of 18:00 on 27th October 2018 (event number 243).
The Age Grade course record is held by Caroline LAVIS who recorded 86.86% (26:30) on 12th October 2019 (event number 291).

Pomphrey Hill parkrun started on 1st March 2014. Since then 10,057 participants have completed 70,536 parkruns covering a total distance of 352,680 km, including 12,995 new Personal Bests. A total of 1,046 individuals have volunteered 6,799 times.

Many thanks

Trudy (Run Director)

Event #296

I was delighted (as you could tell from the shrieking through the megaphone) to get Pomphrey Hill parkrun underway at 09:00.00 for the second week in a row, following on from Danny's prompt start last week. It's a team effort so many, many thanks to the 27 volunteers who made it poossible:
Rose BURCHILL, Molly CHILTON, Phil COSSEY, Mike DIMOND-JONES, Ruth DORRELL, James DORRELL, Michael FRANCIS, Duncan GOUGH, Meryl GRIMSHAW, Adrian GRIMSHAW, Joanna HARVEY, Emily JEFFERIES, Janet JENKINS, Stephen JENKINS, Ian JONES, Andrew KING, James MALLABONE, Caroline MILKINS, Ellie PICKARD, Ian PICKARD, Joshua PICKARD, Sarah PICKARD, Lucy POTTER, Philip RILEY, Ris SCOTT, Daniel SMITH, Gary WOODRUFF

Milestones

Congratulations to the 8 people who completed their first parkrun with us on Saturday, hope you enjoyed yourselves and  we hope to see you again soon.
Congratulations go to Andy FORSE and Simon HAYHURST on their 50th finishes.
Congratulations also go to Philip MCWILLIAMS,  Clare CURRY and Matt BRADLEY  on their 100th finishes.  We hope your new milestone t-shirts arrive quickly and look forward to seeing you wearing them in the weeks to come.
While not a t-shirt earning milestone, special mention to Jonathan BENNETT on his 200th finish.

First Finishers and Highest Age Grade Percentages

Female:

Positions: Jessica Bruce (VW35- 39) in 20:05, Ella SMITH (JW11-14) in 22:19 and Megan ASHTON in 23:24.

Age Grading: Jessica BRUCE (VW35-39) 74.69% , Ella SMITH (JW11-14) 71.55% and Barbara SULLIVAN (VW60-64) 71.35%.

Male:

Positions: William GANLEY (SM25-29) in 17:59, Ian LEONARD (VM45-49) in 18:56 and Jay AKBAR (JM15-17) in 19:23.

Age Grading: Ian LEONARD (VM45-49) in 76.06%, Elijah BUSCEMI (JM10) 74.45% and Callum SKIDMORE (JM10) 71.95%.

Future Events

Saturday December 14th - Event #300 - fancy dress theme is 'Time to Shine'
Saturday December 21st - fancy dress theme is 'Christmas'
Wednesday December 25th at 9:00am, additional Christmas Day Event, fancy dress theme is 'Christmas'
Wednesday January 1st at 10:30am, additional New Years Day Event

Pomphrey Hill parkrun Annual Report 2019

On Tuesday 12th November Pomphrey Hill Community Sports Association held their Annual General Meeting at Pomphrey Hill Pavilion.  Our Annual Report, submitted for the meeting, is below:

Pomphrey Hill parkrun celebrated its 5th anniversary on the 2nd March with a zoo themed event and we will be celebrating our 300th event on 14th December with a ‘Time to Shine’ themed event.

Our average attendance over the last 12 months has been 302 participants and 29 volunteers. This is a steady increase comparable with parkrun’s increasing popularity nationally though still less than our average attendance before Eastville started two years ago and before Somerdale Pavilion in Keynsham started last year.

913 new people have registered with Pomphrey Hill as their home parkrun over the last 12 months. We now have a total of 6,709 people registered to Pomphrey Hill; obviously they don’t all come at the same time!

In the last year 3,449 different people have completed 14,814 runs, walks or jogs around our 5k course. In total over our 5 ½ years, 10,012 different people have completed our course 69,960 times.

In terms of volunteers; in the last year 419 different volunteers have collectively accumulated 1,436 volunteer credits. In total over our 5 ½ years 1,041 different volunteers have collectively accumulated 6,747 volunteer credits.

We have now partnered with three local GP Surgeries as parkrun Practices: Hanham Health Care, Cadbury Heath Health Care and Orchard Medical Centre. Practice staff and patients attend Pomphrey together as well as using social prescribing of parkrun either for the physical health and/or mental health benefits. We also continue to host the graduation run of South Gloucester’s Active for Life Couch to 5K Programme – many of whom keeping running with us.

The BBC attended our Deaf Take Over event in May and footage was shown on the ‘See Hear’ programme. NHS filming from two weeks ago was delayed due to heavy rain and will happen before the end of the year.

We continue to offer Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme placements for the Volunteer Section and had our first Gold candidate this year who successfully completed 52 weeks of volunteering with us.

Our participants and volunteers continue to enjoy the facilities that Pomphrey Hill enables us use; not every parkrun event is lucky enough to have two carparks, toilets, changing rooms as well as hot and cold drinks and food so close to their start and finish. All of this helps our event continue to be one of the very best parkrun events, so thank you.

Until next time,

Ris SCOTT
Co-Event Director

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Pomphrey Hill parkrun
Event number 296
16th November 2019

This week 299 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 18 were first timers and 39 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 22 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 27 volunteers:

Adrian GRIMSHAW • Ruth DORRELL • Janet JENKINS • Meryl GRIMSHAW • Ian JONES • Andrew KING • Rose BURCHILL • Ris SCOTT • Daniel SMITH • Caroline MILKINS • Stephen JENKINS • Lucy POTTER • Sarah PICKARD • Philip RILEY • Duncan GOUGH • James MALLABONE • Molly CHILTON • Joanna HARVEY • Ellie PICKARD • Ian PICKARD • Joshua PICKARD • Phil COSSEY • Emily JEFFERIES • Michael FRANCIS • Gary WOODRUFF • James DORRELL • Mike DIMOND-JONES

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Pomphrey Hill parkrun Results Page.

The male record is held by Patrick MARTIN who recorded a time of 15:37 on 4th February 2017 (event number 156).
The female record is held by Charlotte Emily TAYLOR-GREEN who recorded a time of 18:00 on 27th October 2018 (event number 243).
The Age Grade course record is held by Caroline LAVIS who recorded 86.86% (26:30) on 12th October 2019 (event number 291).

Pomphrey Hill parkrun started on 1st March 2014. Since then 10,030 participants have completed 70,259 parkruns covering a total distance of 351,295 km, including 12,964 new Personal Bests. A total of 1,045 individuals have volunteered 6,774 times.