parkrun News

Weekly Newsletter 2nd December 2009

Welcome to this week's newsletter

Can you believe its December already!

It was June when I last looked. We have had an extremely busy year at parkrun and I must say between You, Chris and Anita the progress has been tremendous. A year ago we had 12 events and now there are 24. Our website has improved enormously and is proving to be an invaluable tool for us all. Our sponsors have rallied to our assistance and engaged with many of you in quite a few different ways proving time and time again that parkrun is the best game in town.

Earlier this year we introduced the new parkrun brand and now we are taking the journey further with the new look newsletter. I really hope you like it as much as I do. Here are some interesting statistics: In this year alone, some 23,000 of you ran a parkrun 104,000 times (196,000 since 2004). We have very nearly run over 1 million kilometres together since 2004. That's a lot of running. Some say that this rates as the largest mass participation event in the UK?

I think everyone is due a bit of praise and recognition. Thanks to the volunteers who are all magnificent and deserve saint-hood. The same goes to Chris and Anita and all the other part time helpers who strive to make parkrun the best it can be. Thank you all for taking part in the best running experience anywhere.

Event News

We have had some great feedback from the events:

	Glasgow parkrun will be marking it's first anniversary this coming Saturday (5th December). We'd encourage runners and supporters to come along: We'll be marking the occasion with a few awards and presentations, and will be starting at about 9.15am. The run will start as usual at 9.30am. We also hope to have a few goodies lined up for everybody who helps or runs, so please make an extra special effort to come along and help celebrate the first year of parkrun in Scotland!
	Congratulations to Rob Downs, Bramhall parkrun race director, for his forth counter as part of the England Mens team at the England Masters home international XC event two weeks ago.
	Happy Birthday to parkrun friend and Bushy parkrun patron, Sonia O'Sullivan.
	Congratulations to news reporter Lynne from Glasgow on her recent engagement.
	Jimmy Goulis completed his 14th win at Bushy parkrun as he heads home to Australia to start a new life. We wish him all the best and hope he stays close to his parkrun family.
	The Bramhall parkrun Santa course record was established last year when our own "sub-17 Santa" Jim Pendrill ran 16.45 in the full outfit. However, this was not without controversy as his beard fell off on the first bridge and there were allegations that he hadn't shouted "Yo Ho Ho" to every marshal.

Drop me an email if you have an interesting parkrun related fact, happening or comment that you would like to share with all parkrunners.

Feedback from the field

Hi...I ran with my son at the new Finsbury venue Saturday, on one of my rare trips to London from North Devon. Great course, more variable than the pancake - like Bushy Park with the odd little hillock about, and a few twists and turns as well. In truth I like them both..... May the fledgling grow with the passing of the weeks ! ( With the constant disruption of the Transport network on Saturdays you should draw on lots of North London folk who don`t fancy being stuck somewhere on some tortuous route looking vainly for a train while the 9 o`clock kick-off gets ever closer... How does the Marathon de Sables compare with getting to Bushy on the average Saturday?! ) Good Luck and thanks
Michael Gilmore

Calling all parkrunners in the Glasgow area

Come and celebrate with Iain, the team and our very own Lucozade Sport Scientist Jaymie Mart this Saturday. Joining the festivities, Jaymie will be offering you all the tips and advice needed to help both your parkrun and any other event in the pipeline. There will also be products from our sports nutrition range available to help fuel you to the finish line.

To help kick the proceedings off, Lucozade Sport has also provided 250 Race Day Essential bags complete with product, to be given out on a first-come-first-served basis, so make sure you get there early to get yours!

Good luck!

Edd - Lucozade Sport

parkrunner of the week

Name: Orlando Pellicano
Club: Stragglers
Age: 30
Home parkrun: Bedfont Lakes parkrun is where I can usually be found most Saturdays, but my home will always be Bushy.
Occupation: Senior FileMaker Developer for a leading IFA in the City
Number of Runs: 11, managed to get the occasional run in between injuries.
Number of times volunteered: Our records show that you have performed 171 responsibilities during a total of 122 events volunteered."...but was helping long before records began.
What do you do at parkruns: Everything and anything, except time keeping I tend to mess that one up. I have been around when Bushy only needed Paul with a camera in one hand and shouting out your position as you crossed the line, happy days, and seen, done and messed up most jobs as the event grew over the years. Administration and processing the results seem to be my speciality these days, but my favourite is doing the numbers with Julia and Rhona at bushy as were so busy messing about I am surprised the numbers are given out in the correct order sometimes.
How has parkrun changed your running: It means that I have a hard run almost every week, which is better for me as I am a lazy trainer.
What do you like about parkrun: It's hard to say in words what I like about parkrun, there is just something about it that brings you back week after. It's a fantastic event for volunteers as well as runners because it's not all serious, there is always something happening to keep thing interesting and the runners really appreciate the time and effort we put in and are not afraid to thank you for it, Anyone out there that has not got around to volunteering at your local parkrun yet, why not give it a go it might be just as fun as running it.
Most memorable or funniest parkrun moment: So many over the years, one that stands out has to be about a year ago at Bushy, a few weeks before the 4th anniversary when we broke the 500 runner mark, but the tokens only went up to 500. I was franticly writing positions with another volunteer on a piece of paper, tearing them off and handing a number to the runners as they crossed the line. Luckily I think there were only a dozen or so runners thankfully.

Happy Running!

Paul from parkrun

Crispy's challenge Ashlee Corfe, who some of you will know as the event director at Bromley parkrun, became the first runner to reach her target time in the challenge. Well done Ashlee, and keep going - now the challenge is to see how much you can beat it by before the end of May. There are also 8 other challengers who are within 30 seconds of their targets (which range from 30 minutes to 17:30). After a couple of weeks away from parkruns on a Saturday morning I was pleased to knock a further 30 seconds odd off my current form at Bushy Park; still a long way to go though,..
Memorable Phrase I have started the process of adding random (slightly odd) memorable phrases to the accounts of everybody who currently does not have one. It will take a few weeks to complete the process; but it would be better, in any case, if everybody picked their own phrase - it helps us to make sure we are recording the correct result for you whenever you run. You can check what your memorable phrase currently is, and change it, by following the 'update my details' link in this newsletter mail, (or in your results mail). Better by far would be print off your barcode (or get someone else to do it for you), but at those events that have not switched over (or if you've forgotten your barcode), please state your memorable phrase, along with your full (registered) name when getting your result recorded.
And on a similar theme,.. Commonest names - a desperate plea Our brave volunteers who look after the post-race results registration computers are having an increasingly difficult time making sure they have found the right athlete when recording the results. This is because we now have very nearly 50,000 runners recorded on our system, but 21% of you share one of only 20 first names, and a staggering 2% of you are called David! Family names, fortunately, are much more diverse. But even so 7% of our runners share just 20 surnames.
So what can you do to help? The best solution by far is to print off your barcode (or get somebody else to do it for you), and bring it with you whenever you run - most of our events are now on barcodes or are planning to do so. If everybody brought their barcodes it would eliminate misidentification overnight and save our volunteer results administrators hours of work each week. For those of you without barcodes yet, or at events without them - it would really help if we have as much information to identify you as possible - if you haven't done so already, please set your memorable phrase by following the 'update my details' link on this very newsletter email. And if you know your name is shared by another parkrunner, please email us with your middle name or initial. OK so here we go pop pickers, the Top twenty first names and family names, if (like me) you fall in both lists - it's even more important for you to follow the advice above. First names (with % of runners): David (1.9%) Paul (1.5%) John (1.4%) James (1.4%) Andrew (1.4%) Mark (1.3%) Sarah (1.1%) Michael (1.1%) Chris (1.1%) Richard (1.1%) Simon (0.9%) Peter (0.9%) Ian (0.8%) Stephen (0.8%) Helen (0.7%) Emma (0.7%) Matthew (0.7%) Tom (0.7%) Claire (0.7%) Steve (0.7%) Family names (with % of runners): SMITH (0.9%) JONES (0.7%) WILLIAMS (0.6%) TAYLOR (0.5%) BROWN (0.5%) DAVIES (0.5%) WILSON (0.4%) JOHNSON (0.3%) EVANS (0.3%) JACKSON (0.3%) WHITE (0.3%) HUGHES (0.3%) THOMAS (0.3%) ROBINSON (0.3%) ROBERTS (0.3%) LEWIS (0.2%) WALKER (0.2%) ANDERSON (0.2%) WOOD (0.2%) WRIGHT (0.2%)
	That's it for another week! Regards, Crispy (disguising his common name)

Wed 12/02/2009

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