parkrunners old and new come and chat all things parkrun.

[cinnamongreyhound]

Starting a new thread at FiftyNineOhEight's request. Come and get comfy and talk all things parkrun, anyone thinking of starting out on your parkrun journey we have loads of experience between us so come and ask.

Duck my 3.5yo runs with Daddy I can barely make the bus stop and loves it. They tend to alternate actual running with walking although the sprint to the finish is pretty quick! There isn't a junior one local enough for us, and at 3 I would expect to supervise him at all times anyway.

Some courses are in actual parks or playing fields, it might be worth checking out venues as potentially you could stand in the middle and watch her round?

I put about 12 t-shirts in the post this afternoon Halle. That was all the emails we'd had so far so they should now be sorted.

The t-shirts were right next to the goody bags and yet there's loads of people who have wandered off without them. Needs some re-arranging for next year I think.

Hope the knees ease up swampy

My eight year olds are both heading towards their 50th runs Duck. We mix it up but usually DD runs with me and DS with DH. I am too slow for DS, unless he feels he's pacing me They both love it and also do the junior runs most weekends.

Well taking it easy today involved walking 15 miles mostly up and down hill and getting a cracking sunburn I'll look charming in my running vest on Saturday!

I've been wondering what the usual ratio of runs to volunteering. I was looking at the league tables and noticed that as we get to the anniversary of our parkrun year, I have done 37 runs and volunteered 7 times so I have awarded myself a score of 5.28. One selfless person has volunteered 20 times and only ran once and that was to cheer on a group of C25K people she had been mentoring so I gave her a score of 0.05 another woman has run 39 times but never volunteered so I gave her a score of 39.

Does anyone else care to share their number of runs divided by their number of time volunteering? Bunch of to the person with the lowest score.

I try to volunteer once a month. I believe the "recommended" is 3 times a year. But from experience you have a few who are recovering from injury, or training for a marathon, who do a whole series of volunteering. I've always thought it should be a rule that you can't claim a milestone T shirt without having volunteered at least once.

I have run 4 times and volunteered once. 2 more runs before I volunteer again. So does that give me a score of 3?

My aim is to volunteer after every 4/5 runs.

I have run 67 times and volunteered 17 - my calculator tells me that is (a rounded up) 4 which I think is respectable.

It works out on average as once every six weeks, though in reality it's much more sporadic than that - pregnancy and all that.

Actually a bit nervous about running tomorrow! Hoping to come in under 37mins.

Have fun everyone!

I'm 100+ and have volunteered 20 times. Sounds like I need to do a bit more!

What leggings should I wear tomorrow? (With my black shirt and skort)

The ones that look like raw muscles? The flying Scot tartan ones? Or the forest ones, as I'm planning to run through the lovely woodland at Antrim? I'm meeting up with a fellow member of the iverunalltheNornIrnparkrunssoIhave club, who is also a member of the I Run a With A Dog Called Minnie club!

For the 5k I've volunteered once so far. The run we go to most now needs more marshals than our first one and is much smaller so more definitely planned this year.

Juniors I've done a lot more of. There's a new juniors now so I'm being brave and I'm going to try branching out beyond marshalling.

Muscles gets the vote from me Melanie

Good luck today Thursday. That would still be faster than I managed!!

Last minute change! Antrim is not on today, so I'll go join Tim Page at Queens - he's doing all the NI runs in one year for charity.

143 parkruns for me. Not sure how many times I've volunteered and the parkrun servers are over capacity so I can't check but I have my purple t-shirt and am on core team for my local parkrun and junior parkrun so it'll be a fair few. I think I do OK. I'm even Run Directouring in a couple of weeks and doing a stint at another event close to me.

Actually got to run today. Busted ankles and depression let me get out. I was slow but it was fun.

Well done Joan, great feeling isn't it :)

Go for it chutney, all the other jobs are simple. DS's favourite job is Timer which lots of people find scary but it isn't really. Today he supported a grown-up doing it for the first time. He's 10!

233 runners today in glorious sunshine. Two of our RDs ran their 100th so there was plenty of cake afterwards :o

Well done Joan smashing feeling isn't it?

I got round (just, I had a tumble into the bluebells at one point ) in 34.36, delighted with that but it was HARD. So lovely having people saying 'welcome back' and cheering me on!

Glad you got to run and that it was fun Blathers.
We had a posse from MK today - a tourist group of Redway and Sweatshop Runners, there may be photos in the run report when I do it!

Well done joan and thursday on your return. I need to accept that I am only going to get slower and that that's ok. I was over 4 mins down on my PB today but another run closer to the half century, six to go now

I've only volunteered 3 times but will be increasing that over the next few months. I'm not sure I will be brave enough to time, it seems such a responsibility, I may have to have a lesson with your son feetheart

Hello! I took another 57 seconds off today so ran in 30.26 which I am really pleased with!

Next week will be slower as I have promised to run with a friend to encourage her and the week after I am tail running.

Cannot believe how much I am enjoying this! Well done everyone who took part in any way today :)

Well done for getting out BlackCat just getting round in the first tri is worth being proud of my lungs always felt fit to burst!

joan when I need to bring a child or two I volunteer to marshal. I think the other jobs require taking your eyes off them quite a lot, so it depends on how much you trust them?!

Joan - we almost always have marshals with children in tow and, depending on the age of the child, I either put them close to the playground or in a spot where there is lots of space to run around if they get bored. Get them to bring something to make a noise with and to be prepared to hi-5 the runners. It's worth letting the event team know you will have children with you so they can put you somewhere suitable.
We also have child-sized hi vis but we bought them, they aren't standard :)

Done my second recent park run today, managed 35.35, last week was 37.01 so happy with that! I am on a mission to get sub 35

Well done everyone! Especially Joan for a new pb and Blathers for going x

Can non runners volunteer? Ds2 can go in the sling while dh runs with ds1. He hasn't volunteered yet and is signed up for our local half in a few months. So I think I ought to step into the breach maybe?