What a spectacular day it was on Christmas Day at Stormont.
The marvellous volunteers rocked up at Stormont to the news that both Bangor and Wallace had been cancelled at the last minute, owing to icy conditions, so we expected a few more peeps than normal... we were not however prepared for the throngs of runners and walkers (and santas, crackers, elves and snowmen) that entered through the gates!

Nearly 600 people (570 to be precise!) ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 100 were first timers (a huge welcome to you all) and 78 recorded new Personal Bests. Go you! Representatives of 47 different clubs took part.
We were so thrilled that so many of you chose Stormont on Christmas Day, it was fantastic to have you with us.
Special welcome to all the visitors who joined us on the day from near and far and it was a great privilege to welcome Simon Lane and Martha. Simon is one of the Run Directors at Bushy Park - so they are both well used to large numbers! To give this some context... Bushy Park had 2545 runners, joggers and walkers on Christmas Day... eek!
There were many milestones too...
(So sorry we were unable to recognise you all by name during the briefing...)
Emily Morris and Rishab Reddy (both juniors) chose to achieve their 10 t-shirt at Stormont - huge kudos to you both! Emily also landed a pb - clever girl!
Beverley Crockard will soon be rocking a 50 t-shirt, amazing Beverley, very well done.
David Gribben, John Stevenson, Robert Beattie, Heather Stanex and Sheena Kelly all joined the 100 club - we are thrilled and delighted you chose to achieve this fantastic milestone with us at Stormont.
The swan effect...a few hurdles on the way...
(which we smashed btw! hee hee)
STOPWATCHES...
With over 500 peeps running, we knew we had to operate the stopwatches in a different way (each stopwatch only records the times of the first 497 runners!) so once Jonny had timed the first 497 on his stopwatch, he signalled to Karen to take over and record the remaining runners times... they did this marvellously well and didn't lose focus for even a second... (kudos to Mags for the sage and quick-thinking advice to Mrs Claus!)
FINISH TOKENS...
We have 440 finish tokens...(the average attendance at Stormont is around 200 and last Christmas day there were around 360) 400 odd would therefore be no sweat to us...
Clever Head-Elf Alison had thought ahead and had printed off a few more finish token scanning-codes on A4 paper in the 'unlikely' event that we may have more than 440 people attend... recognising quite quickly that there were about a zillion people in Stormont Estate, she rang her hubby, Chief Turkey-Baster Barrie who printed off a whole pile more, got on his bike and zoomed them down to Mrs Claus...
MARSHALLING...
It was then noticed that there was a very icy bit of the course, but with our marshalls Helena, Helen and Lesleyanne already in position we had to come up with another plan B... Una, who was allocated as a scanner, was moved to the icy bit to ensure everyone was kept safe and multi-tasked for the event (well, she is a woman of great strength and character!) and scanned in a lot of you too.
FINISH FUNNEL...
With a zillion people coming into the finishing funnel in quick succession, Fabrice, Jimmy (the real santa) Claus, Sophie and Gillian worked swiftly and in tandem, issuing tokens like lightening and saying well-worn phrases such as... 'Well done' & 'Merry Christmas' & 'Keep in line' and 'Move quickly please' & 'Vomit at the end'... lol.
All runners were then directed to the marvellous scanners, David, Choi and Una - after her 'ice-duty' was completed. These guys worked effortlessly and with good humour too. Alison also dug in after her run too (another extremely efficient multi-tasking woman of strength and character!)
Participants were then directed to the convivial providers of mulled wine, hot coffee, doggy biscuits and fresh water - Maxs and Mags.
THE RESULTS...
Run Director, Marianne then scooted home at the end of parkrun to upload (download??) the 5 scanning devices that were used (3 scanners and 2 apps on phones) and both stopwatches... in order that everyone could receive their result quickly.
Mindful that she had 30 family members coming for mulled wine & mince pies at noon...followed by turkey with all the trimmings for 11, promised for 3pm...(eventually served at 4.20pm...) and was still in the Mrs Claus outfit worn to parkrun...with lovely sparkly clothes all laid out, ready to do a quick change into before guests arrived...results needed to be completed with military precision...
Uploading (downloading??) the results is a very simple process; the software is efficient and is very clever technology and everything was going according to plan until...one of the stopwatches refused to be recognised by the laptop... and therefore was not uploading (downloading??) ...aarrghh!
A few whatsapp messages later, to the other run directors, and a lot of scratching of heads and it was decided to do what all techies advise... reboot the laptop (lol)...this had no effect whatsoever...
Every serial port was checked, two cables were used but nada, zilch, zero uploading was happening...
Quick facebook message posted advising that results may not be up before the next day and back to heating mulled wine and basting the turkey...
Guests began to arrive and in between glugging mulled wine (copious amounts to help with brain-function) and opening pressies, Mrs Claus was back at the laptop, trying to prevent the what-was-almost-inevitable-at-this-point, 59:59 results for everyone...
Throughout the day, at various times, the laptop was rebooted again, cables were attempted again (sparkly outfit never did get put on but that might have been down to the mulled wine!) multiple whatsapp messages were made, no time to even make the phone-call to parkrun HQ (who always have a designated person available to talk to with any issues on processing results)... and then... Mrs Claus did what anyone would have done and gave up for the day...
Boxing day brought a brand new day and with dogged (some might say bloody-minded!) determination that this would not beat her... and a fresh (but bumpy) head, the search for the 'eureka moment' continued... there were many google searches and lots more whatsapp messages to fellow run directors and the event director... she was about to ring parkrun HQ, and then it happened... EUREKA!!!
Mrs Claus uploaded (downloaded??) all devices (except the dumb stopwatch) to the software just to 'see what would happen' ...
She realised that she could manually enter the times of the approx 80 people who had no time recorded from the stopwatch and what do you know... it worked!! It didn't even take too long to do that as all the names were recorded when they had been scanned....
Several huge sighs of reliefs, self-patting on back and whoop whooping later... it was done!
Then something even more miraculous happened... Head-Angel Magda messaged insisting that she would take the tokens to sort out and put them all in order ready for the next parkrun Event Number 227 on Saturday.
Sorry that the run report is like war and peace but hopefully this helps to explain what happened! The sick stopwatch (RIP) has been laid to rest and we look forward to welcoming you all again to Stormont soon.
The event was made possible by 20 fantastic and festively dressed volunteering elves:
Mags MATHIESON • Gary WATTON • Marianne HOOD • Max MCROBERTS • Fabrice SCOUPE • Una MCNEILL • Sophie LAW • Magda BERNATEK • Alison CANNING • Gillian SADLIER • Choi Yuk TSE • Helena DRYSDALE • Jonathan CAMPBELL • Helen MCMAHON • Patricia ADAMS • David MALEY • Jimmy MCNEILL • Karen DOUGAN • Gary CRAIG • Lesleyanne R

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Stormont parkrun Results Page.
Looking forward to next years Christmas Day run and wishing you all a very Happy New Year - don't forget we will be running on NYD too, starting at 9.30am and please bring along any old trainers which will be donated to refugee families who have settled in Northern Ireland. Check out the event page here https://www.facebook.com/events/451449985562400/
We are away to lie down in a darkened room now...
Mrs Marianne Claus xx