parkrun

[Steve vRS]

I took part in the Warrington run this morning. Well organised and well attended. Good to be back!

[Birdster]

Morning,

I visited the Plymvalley park run today as I'm staying with friends. Good to be back, good to see a lovely course and just grateful for how well organised it was and thanks goes out to the volunteers. Caught up with a lady near the end and we kept pace together and had a chat at the end. Funny how much you miss the group running and banter.

Edited by Birdster on Saturday 24th July 12:21

[Birdster]

Steve vRS said:

I took part in the Warrington run this morning. Well organised and well attended. Good to be back!

Love the Warrington course.

[RizzoTheRat]

Test run today ahead of starting a few weeks. 11 new people on top of the normal core team so pretty happy with that. Figured out a couple of adjustments we need to make to the signage to make the route clearer. We were due to start the week after the first lockdown started so its been a frustrating year. parkrun's official start again next week here so time to get a few tourist ones in before we start ours.

[MOBB]

I did Great Denham parkrun today, moved house last year, used to do Kettering

I haven’t really run since COVID began, managed 35 minutes which is 9 minutes slower than my pb, but no walking involved which I was very happy with

It was like it had never been away

[interstellar]

Upton House Park Run for me today in Poole. Girlfriends 1st one, my 11th and it was great to be back.

[KTF]

The apps are great. Did the results using my phone minutes after the last person finished.

No more faffing about with cables and a laptop for ages afterwards.

I can see a laptop being needed when the results are in a state but as a first time using them I am impressed.

[john2443]

Somewhat stressed this morning as Run Director but fortunately a combination of Covid fear, threatened (but didn't happen) rain and school hols kept numbers down to 340 which is very easy to manage.

Looking forward to running next week when someone else can be the one worrying if it's all going to work!

[Cybertronian]

Babbs Mill in Birmingham for me, with just 84 finishers. Didn't fancy my usual haunt of Cannon Hill, which finished with just under 500.

Finished 30 seconds slower than my course best, so will take that!

[madbadger]

Amazing being back today.

I’ve run almost every day since Covid and today got a course Pb by almost a minute. Well chuffed.

It is definitely about more than the run.

[Birdster]

madbadger said:

Amazing being back today.

I’ve run almost every day since Covid and today got a course Pb by almost a minute. Well chuffed.

It is definitely about more than the run.

Agreed, something about being there and running and being spurred on by others and the encouragement.

I missed it but didn't realise how much until this morning. Just getting ready for the drive back to London and still buzzing.

[Tim330]

I took my 2 year old daughter today and ran with her in her off road running buggy for her 1st parkrun. We arrived late and started 2 mins after the start. It was fun slowly working my way through the field. At least next time it'll be a buggy pb if we start on time.

[ukbabz]

My local parkrun wasn't on this week, so I went to another 5miles away for the first time. It felt really good to be in a mass event again and first one I've done since December 2019.

I did set a new parkrun pb though which felt good (21m37s)

[KTF]

Also, thanks to all the 19.xx people being at endure this weekend, I bagged second place

Was in the lead for the first half a lap which was very odd indeed as I had no one to chase.

The first place came in as a sub 19 so had no hope of catching him once he got past sadly.

[Terminator X]

Yep back today too. Best time for a few years for me!

TX.

[mfmman]

I wasn't planning on starting back this week, as I was concerned by high numbers (not Covid, but runners & the pressure on organisers etc) but looked at a few results and numbers were way down (50 to 75% of Feb 2020) so should have gone really. My two closest runs weren't on this week, one as the park was being used for another event and one due to weather warnings.

Congrats to those who ran this week, esp the PBs. I was at 25-26 mins before and although I have done a fair bit of running in the meantime it's got closer and closer to 30 mins (the 5kg gained in the last 16 months won't have helped) so hoping that running in a group will see some progress.

Edited by mfmman on Sunday 25th July 06:53

[Cybertronian]

I saw via Elliot Line's stat reporting that there was one chap who finally made it into the 500 club after being stuck on 499 for more than 16 months.

Age group of 80-84 as well, so I'm chuffed to bits he finally made it!

[fiatpower]

mfmman said:

I wasn't planning on starting back this week, as I was concerned by high numbers (not Covid, but runners & the pressure on organisers etc) but looked at a few results and numbers were way down (50 to 75% of Feb 2020) so should have gone really.

Seems alot of parkruns had a number lower than before COVID (albeit no data on how much lower so could be 1 lower...).

Direct comparison between yesterday and 14th March 2020 where events took place on both dates:

• 164 parkruns had higher attendance

• 333 parkruns had lower attendance

• 4 parkruns had the same attendance

I couldn't attend my local because I was having to self isolate. Thankfully that is up now but I won't be able to go next weekend as i'm away and there's no parkrun near where i'm staying!

[5pen]

I can only echo the earlier comments. The event I attended was brilliantly run and all felt very comfortable and dare I say it, "normal". It was great to be back running in a group again as I find the time passes so much quicker and more enjoyably.

368 participants which is a bit down on the average, but more than the last event (but that was a makeshift course due to flooding).

In fact, the last "standard" running of my local event was 14th December 2019 (there were 5 makeshift course runs and 9 cancellations before the COVID break), so it's been an even longer wait for normality to return and it felt great.

[FunkyNige]

fiatpower said:

mfmman said:

I wasn't planning on starting back this week, as I was concerned by high numbers (not Covid, but runners & the pressure on organisers etc) but looked at a few results and numbers were way down (50 to 75% of Feb 2020) so should have gone really.

Seems alot of parkruns had a number lower than before COVID (albeit no data on how much lower so could be 1 lower...).

Direct comparison between yesterday and 14th March 2020 where events took place on both dates:

• 164 parkruns had higher attendance

• 333 parkruns had lower attendance

• 4 parkruns had the same attendance

I couldn't attend my local because I was having to self isolate. Thankfully that is up now but I won't be able to go next weekend as i'm away and there's no parkrun near where i'm staying!

I think a lot of the lower attendance was due to a lot of people thinking like mfmman (quite sensibly) that it would be really busy in the first week back and didn't want to run in a massive crowd. I was going to leave it a few weeks until the crowds died down a bit (not because of Covid but the course is really narrow in places and I don't like running when it's crazy busy) but decided to go in the end and it was about 75% of the average there. Speaking to the volunteers they had no idea how many would turn up - dome predicting a new record and some wondering if there would be more volunteers that runners!

It's good to be back though and the general 'return to normality' seems to be accelerating so I'm going to guess that the numbers will shoot up to near pre-lockdown levels in the next few weeks.