Well done everyone, especially first timers. I hope you have all signed up for your emails and texts , it's so exciting when they arrive. When my 8 yo did his first Parkrun , he printed out the email and took it into school to show the teacher < bless> .
I was volunteering today , dispensing finish tokens and was amazed how many refused a finish token and had to be persuaded to take one .
For the benefit of anyone who is unsure -if you enter the funnel you NEED to take a token or it messes up the timing system. When you enter the tunnel you are assigned a time eg 25:32 and we need to match it up with a place eg number 136.
If you don't take a token or skip out of the queue, your time will be assigned to the runner behind you and all the numbers will be one out.
If you don't have your barcode with you and you've gone through the funnel, you just take a token and drop the token in the bucket marked " unwanted tokens " at the scanning area. If you remember your place, you can see your time online later. It just won't be assigned to you.
And if you don't run the full course, you can finish the run but please don't go into the funnel. We can usually spot runners who have only done one lap of our two lap course, but not always. If you do this, it will mess up your own times for ever, as you will never get a PB.
Here ends the public service announcement 