Discussion
Smitters said:
I often wear some quite vivid green shorts and I had a guy thank me in the funnel - he said he had been closing in on the shorts for the final lap! Must wear more sedate gear!
One week I had the bloke behind me say 'Thanks for the tow'....I had no idea he was there!I sometimes wonder if we could see all the people who are unknowingly pacing the people behind if there would be a trail all the way from start to finish!
madbadger said:
It's great when someone says that. You often don't realise someone is pacing against you until the scanning queue. Part of what parkrun is about.
I did Sunderland today in the drizzle. Nice course and pleased with my time considering the hill right at the end and I was trying to take it easy before a 10 mile off road race tomorrow.
I pace myself against a chap who is a good 60-90s quicker. My goal is to keep him in sight and eventually overtake!I did Sunderland today in the drizzle. Nice course and pleased with my time considering the hill right at the end and I was trying to take it easy before a 10 mile off road race tomorrow.
TX.
Halb said:
A few weeks volunteering.
It's good!
I've volunteered twice now in the past month or so when I've had a race on the Sunday, really enjoyable, even in the appalling weather we had on one of the weeks. I always thank the marshals as I run around and it was nice to be on the receiving end. Weirdly I really want to pop my 'handing out the finishing tokens' cherry, so will put my name down for that soon.It's good!
ukaskew said:
Weirdly I really want to pop my 'handing out the finishing tokens' cherry, so will put my name down for that soon.
Based on things that have really happened at our local events, some dos and don'ts!- Don't take a handful of tokens off the wire/string, shove them in your pocket and give them out in random order - there's a reason why they have a number on them!
- Don't start giving them out from 500 downwards, then realise that's wrong and change to starting at 1
- If you drop a handful on the floor, leave them there and hand them in separately afterwards, don't try to pick them up and give them out randomly or try to get them in order while the queue builds up.
- If someone refuses to take a token from you ('I'm not registered/I forgot my barcode/I did a rubbish time and don't want it recorded) put their token in your pocket and drop in in the token collecting tub afterwards, there isn't time to have a debate with them and if you give the token to the person behind, everyone's time is one out.
If you think it's a busy event, have a watch of Bushy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuvagW6qMmY That's the way to do it!Fair play - I was a barcode scanner this week and I really enjoyed it. Great to see all the runners finish and a nice reminder that while the guys up front might be tuning up for a half marathon or something, this is still a massive achievement for a lot of the finishers. We had a young girl who's building up her laps until she can do the whole thing but still wanted to run the finish chute and a woman who ran the entire thing for the first time, a load of first-timers and lots of familiar faces. I really would recommend volunteering.
Smitters said:
I really would recommend volunteering.
That's good to hear! Looking at it from my Event Directors point of view, we need to have volunteers or we can't put the event on, but from a volunteers POV, you'll get much more out of it by volunteering, it does mean missing a run sometimes, but the vols get to know people much quicker and then you get invited to other stuff.
For me, last week included Thursday pub quiz with pr team, Saturday pr and coffee then lunch with a friend
from pr, pub in the eve with pr people, Sunday social run and pub lunch with pr people. Every week isn't quite like that but it's unusual for there to be a week when there isn't a pr related run or social event and the people in the social group have got together because of volunteering.
I don't do much marshalling, timekeeping, tokens etc these days because on a week that I'm not Run Director I want to run, but I do miss doing the grass roots stuff!
john2443 said:
If you think it's a busy event, have a watch of Bushy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuvagW6qMmY That's the way to do it!
I would love to go to Bushy just to see the logistics of it and how they deal with the massive numbers that turn up each week.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuvagW6qMmY That's the way to do it!Gassing Station | Sports | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff