Parkrunners anonymous keep on running

[OhOneOhTwoOhThree]

As the last thread was filling up, here's a nice new one for parkrunners old and new

All parkrunners are welcome here!

I've heard great things about Edinburgh parkrun LottaMarten. A friend of mine ran it the day before the Edinburgh half and said it was wonderfully friendly and really well organised. I have a feeling they have a slightly later start time though so it's definitely worth checking the parkrun page

Yep - it's 9:30 :)

I'm off to pick up all the kit for my parkrun in a minute.

Welcome Lotta, and well done on your C25K.

Each park run is slightly different, but every one I have been to (mostly on my own - DH has only been with me a couple of times) has been friendly. My park run does the briefing at 9 and we then walk to the start, others do the briefing earlier. When I went to visit Blathers at her parkrun I was still parking my car as the runners started .

The beauty of going regularly is you start to recognize faces and you know who finishes roughly at the same time as you, so you start to run together/have a bit of friendly rivalry/chat .

On newbies, ours doesn't do a separate briefing, but others I've been to do. And our briefing always repeats the children/dogs on short leads/beware of other park users messages every week. We have some partially sighted runners, so the RD often reminds us of that as well.

Blathers you will be brill, if I wasn't off to Bath on Saturday for the week I would come and visit you.

Blathers, you'll be great!

I've been to 7 different venues, and they always ask if anyone is new to parkrunning, or to this course.

Lotta, enjoy your first one - you won't believe how elated you'll feel afterwards!

I treated myself this week to the little plastic tag barcodes - no more soggy bits of paper that won't scan

Melanie having done scanning a couple of weeks ago when it was really hot I think everyone should have the plastic tags. Some of the sweaty bits of paper I was handed were truly revolting.

Some tips for tags/barcodes based on my experience.

1. Don't tie your tag to your waistband drawstring and expect the scanner person to get up close to you. Undo the drawstring, take it off and hand it to them. We're not supposed to touch you even if we wanted to, and your hairy, flabby tummy are not what we want to see on a sunny Saturday morning.

1. Don't wear your tag around your neck, especially if you are tall, then lean over the scanner who is a lot shorter than you. It's not nice getting dripped on. Take it off. It only takes a second.

1. Don't keep your paper barcode down your sock. It gets sweaty and disintegrates and is quite hard to scan.

I an not a hygiene freak by any means, but next time I am scanning I will be taking some hand gel with me for afterwards

We ought to do a new runners briefing at MK really. We don't though. Maybe that'll be my change for this week

I've been to 17 different courses now. They don't all do them but I'm not sure it's always necessary. MK is a one lap course so it's just a case of following everyone else to the end. Dartford last weekend was the most convoluted course I've ever been to. I'll see if I can pinch a picture from my Garmin to show you.

I know Edinburgh definitely do a new runners brief though.

Good luck Blatherskite, the first one is always the worst and I bet you're not on your own there will be lots of people to support you :)

Oh and I love your run down of DO NOTs for scanning OhOneOhTwoOhThree, I tend not to do jobs as I rd when I volunteer and I'm trying not to volunteer anymore than that (roughly every 5 weeks). I find scanning quite stressful, manly because of tokens! Time keeping is my favourite, certainly no touching there .

I'm training a new rd this weekend, should be fun!

I've managed to enlist the 2 RDs that talked me into volunteering to do this bloody stupid job to Number Check and Timekeep for me so all should be OK I've at least got plenty of help on hand if it all goes wrong.

Timekeeping is my least favourite job, I much prefer scanning - or funnel managing as I'm rather good at keeping people in line.

Blathers and cinners - some advice please. DS1 is 17, DS2 is 12. Can they go to parkrun together without me?

In other words, is DS1 at 17 old enough to be DS2's guardian? They won't run together (but I don't think they need to as DS2 is over 11). I have looked on the FAQs and it says under 14s need a parent or guardian, which is fair enough, but it doesn't go on to define guardian, and whether they need to be over 18.

Hmmm, not sure. They can both run independently but I'm not sure on the guardian thing either.

We're just off to the cinema now but I'll have a look at the FAQs later.

Or message me on FB and I'll forward it to the 3 EDs I know and see what they say...

Thanks Blathers, will message you

I've messaged you OhOne but I'll put it here too in case anyone else was interested...

I've checked the parkrun wiki and all I can really find is an entry about "Welfare" which states that a "'guardian' should be taken to mean parent, or any adult acting as carer or otherwise in locus parenti" so I would guess that as your eldest is 17 and not technically and 'adult', he wouldn't count as a guardian. I got responses from 2 of my ED friends, both of whom I would count as fountains of knowledge on everything parkrun and neither of them knew for sure either but the general feeling would be that if asked, they would probably say 'No'. It might be worth checking with your local ED though as they might be happy to go with it as I can't find anything that explicitly states that it's not allowed.

I've now saved the link to the wiki on my home PC too so I can have access even if I don't have the laptop :)

Just wanted to say hi because I have just registered with park run

Can't do my first one until the first weekend in Sept because of weekend commitments over the summer but I'm really looking forward to it!

Welcome to the parkrun family Edith. Good to have you :)

Thank you Blathers to be on the safe side I will send DH with them.

Hello Edith welcome to parkrun

Thanks, looking forward to getting into it. And having read more of this thread am going to look for runs near friends that we are visiting, do a bit of park run tourism.

Ooh, a question, I know it says all abilities but will I get massively scorned if I can't run the whole thing and have to walk a bit?

Edith - not in the least. Check the finish times for your local parkrun/any you are visiting and you will see that as well as the super-speedy club runners there are others coming in at up to 50 mins (and more). There are all ages and abilities.

And if you give a shout-out on here you may find someone who goes to your local parkrun or one you are visiting

(and it's hugely supportive, no scorning allowed!)

Thank you for your help and advice. I am a bit nervous! Last time I did anything was a fun run when I was 11! I am quite fit though.

Kind if looking forward too though, thanks all

Gosh there's no scorning! I've often found that the early finishers hang around and clap and cheer the later finishers as they cross the line.

Oh brilliant

That's really reassuring.

I'm going to do Plym Valley if anyone is down in this neck of the woods?

Definitely no scorning allowed! There have been plenty of run/walkers at all the parkruns I've been to.

In fact it's often the run/walkers at the back that I have the most respect for. The gazelles at the front who have skipped round in 16 minutes and could do it again are very impressive but the runners at the back who have run and walked and sweated and dug deep to get round the course without giving up have given it their absolute all and dedication like that should be applauded - loudly :)

I visited one a few weeks ago with three ladies walking with prams with tiny babies :) guessed they may have been runner before. Everyone is welcome no matter ability.