My journey really began in January 2011 when for some unknown reason I decided to enter the Asics London 10k race. Seeing as my running career up to that point was non-existent it was a bizarre thing to do.
At that particular stage in my life I was a very active member of Toastmasters International, a volunteer led organisation that helps people improve their public speaking skills. I posted the following on Facebook which attracted so many positive responses from other Toasties that I knew I wouldn't be able to drop out!
A few months into training, a Toastie friend posted the following on Facebook and this was the first I had ever heard of “parkrun”
The ironic thing about Joe’s post is that he didn’t go along to his first parkrun until February 2012, he did his second in March 2012 and he hasn’t been back since!
It took me the next few weeks to pluck up the courage to do anything about this post but eventually I discovered my nearest event was held at Valentines park in Ilford which was just over 10 miles away from where I was living in Upminster.
According to my Facebook history I was taking this seriously and on April 1st I have this memory:
The following day I made my parkrun debut. It was the 7th event of Valentines parkrun and I recall during the run that I was ahead of 2 “club runners”, both of them in running tops that I discovered were the Dagenham 88 club colours. In those days “Tailrunner” wasn’t a compulsory role but I have a suspicion that the two 88s behind me were tail that day. I finished in 19th place (my best finishing position) in a time of 32:13 which I wasn’t pleased with, lets ignore the fact that there were only 22 runners and 2 were the tail.
After the run I went straight home, however, I absolutely loved the whole parkrun concept and seeing as it was very similar to the toastmasters model that I was very used to, each Toastmasters club, like a parkrun event was looked after by a "core team" with the equivalent of an Event Director in charge. The big difference though is a core team at a Toastmasters club are elected each year by the "regulars" and the "ED" isn't able to be in the role for more than a year at a time. Knowing how they were dependant on volunteers, as soon as I got home I sent the team an email which amongst many things said something along the lines of
“I am taking part in the London 10k race on July 10th so will be available to volunteer on Saturday 9th”. It’s fair to say I was hooked. Later on that day my Facebook post was a very simple one
For the next 2 weeks I returned to Valentines and managed PBs on both occasions.
The weekend incorporating 23rd April was different though as I was in Suffolk and needed my Saturday morning parkrun fix. Back then the options weren’t as good. Going in an Easterly Direction took me to the North Sea. Going North the nearest event was Norwich, however the Norfolk/Suffolk rivalry meant I wasn’t going there. Going South on the A12 would take me back to Valentines. That left me with going Westerly which took me to Cambridge parkrun at Milton Country Park. My tourism journey started after just 3 weeks!
Cambridge parkrun became like a second home for me. I had a very long conversation with Heidi, the Event Director and she introduced me to “fetcheveryone” the free website for runners, cyclists, swimmers, walkers and everyone else. She also gave me lots of insight into the world of parkrun. It’s quite funny looking back at the volunteer roster for that day as one of my longest standing parkrun friends Linda Crook is on there. The other thing I have noticed from this look back is that Cambridge had 255 runners that day. A slight difference to the 22, 25 and 26 that I had experienced at Valentines.
A further 3 weeks at Valentines followed with the second of them (and my fifth time in total) being my first sub 30 minute finish and my ALL TIME Valentines PB of 28:38. I then had my second spot of tourism by visiting Greenwich parkrun with my Toastie friend Amber Raney-Kincade. The parkrun event naming convention in those days was slightly different as the event was held in the London Borough of Greenwich, and was held in Avery Park rather than the more famous Greenwich park
Meanwhile, I had a minor setback in my 10km race training which saw me injured. Again looking at the records I didn’t go along to parkrun as the volunteering bug hadn’t yet set in. It wasn’t long though before I started volunteering with a spot of barcode scanning.
It's quite ironic that Gary Donald is in the picture I took as he has become a great friend – Thank you parkrun. I always describe him as my “parkrun Nemesis” because whilst parkrun itself isn’t a race we were always racing each other. On the second lap at Valentines I knew that if I got to the tennis courts before he had turned into the same path that the courts were on, I would finish ahead of him, otherwise he would catch me by the end. From memory I would say we were pretty even on the “win” count but in all reality, Gary was probably well ahead. It is the friendship with Gary that really does illustrate that parkrun is more than just a run.
Having completed my first stint of volunteering I am very surprised to see that the following week I was Run Director!! Fortunately 2 of the more experienced parkrunners, Jennifer Ackroyd and Martin Clarke were also in attendance. That was pretty fortunate as there were only 5 volunteers in total that week!! I suspect that Jen and Martin were using this as a training opportunity as 2 weeks later I was in full control of the event. That fully explains the following post I found on Facebook.
I can remember this day very well. As a relatively new parkrunner my major concerns about being in charge was having to teach people how to use equipment that I wasn’t totally familiar with. At the time I was also in training for a Duathlon so I decided to combine my Run/bike/run training with learning how the timing equipment worked. In those days timekeeping was carried out using the Opticon Portable Companion Scanner OPN-2002 as shown below
Once reset you would press the button in the middle to start the timer going and then press it again each time crossed the line. Simple really.
After finishing work on that Friday afternoon I went of and did my duathlon training With the Opticon around my neck I did a mental 3 – 2 – 1 and started the clock. I then went off for my run. Once back and “in transition” I pressed the opticon as if the first finisher had crossed the line. Once I was on my bike I pressed the Opticon again to give me a second time, plus as a bonus I could work out my transition time. I followed the same procedure when I got back from the cycle ride and again when I got back from the second run. Using this process meant I was able to load up 5 times into the test results system. I also loaded up 5 finishing positions and personal barcode numbers for a full set of results. That was the method I used to learn how to do the results all on my own. I can’t remember how it went on the day, but as I still enjoy doing results it clearly wasn’t too traumatic.
I clearly had the bug at this stage as a couple of weeks later I was going to Cambridge so I sent them the following message to learn a bit more about the results system.
I wrote so many wrongs back then!
Back in 2011 one of the main parkrun UK sponsors was Sweatshop, a leading sports clothing shop. As part of their sponsorship they allowed all UK events to nominate 1 person per month to receive a voucher for a new pair of running shoes. Imagine how surprised and delighted I was to be able to post the following on Facebook
And then a few days later
Shortly after receiving the award, my parkrun experience was about to take a massive change in direction. At Valentines there were essentially 4 of us that were responsible for putting on the event. Dean was ED alongside Jen Ackroyd, Martin Clark and myself helping out. As Dean had only really taken on the ED role as starting the event was a work objective for him, it wasn’t a major shock when he stepped down. It was agreed with the other two that I would take on the ED role.
Later on that October, I found myself participating in what has become a common thing for me at parkrun events. October 29th was the nearest parkrun day to Halloween, with my new ED hat on we decided to make it Fancy dress!! I wasn’t big into fancy dress in those days but I felt obliged to get something.
From memory this was the cheapest outfit available from Tescos the day before so obviously that was the one I purchased. What an absolute nightmare of an outfit it was to run in. My vision was limited to what I could see out of the mouth area which wasn’t a lot. After about 5 minutes of running I can recall seeing my friend Ian Cummins overtaking me. In my mind I was thinking “That’s unexpected, Ian is a 21 minute runner, I’m a 30 minute runner, he wasn’t late so how comes I’m ahead of him?” I clearly had gone of way too quickly and the lack of peripheral vision wasn’t doing me any favours. Needless to say I slowed down to a slower pace. The ridiculous speed at the start was clearly a bad omen as my Nemesis had overtaken me before the end of the first lap!!
It wasn’t long before the fancy dress was on again for an incredibly funny Christmas Eve event at Valentines. I was on RD duty for the 6th time and not surprisingly Santa outfits were the order of the day. The following picture helps set the scene
As it says in the original post
“Valentines was transferred back to Christmas 1996 as Batman and Robin came flying down the road with perfect timing as we were all lining up for a photo and joined us for our first Christmas Fancy Dress parkrun.”
It was an absolutely brilliant moment as Pritesh “Batman” Patel and Hiren “Robin” Aghera appeared out of the mist just as we were lining up for a picture. They were quick enough to join us for the main picture.
And then the following day I started another parkrun tradition and attended my first Christmas Day parkrun ��
During 2011 I completed 23 parkruns and recorded 15 volunteer credits. These were done at 4 different events. On 5 occasions I received both a run and volunteer credit.