My first parkrun of 2012 is, with hindsight, very ironic. On the Friday I posted the following on Facebook.
This was in reference to cycling over to Valentines parkrun, running parkrun and then cycling back home. However, an additional post in the same thread, said:
At the time I was doing the “run a mile a day challenge” and the plan had been to complete my mile during parkrun. However, on the day, we had a mother/daughter combination at the back and at no stage during the event did we manage a whole mile. I therefore had to do an extra lap of running. On the cycle home I kept having issues getting my left foot into my pedal clips which I put down to a kind of DOMs due to the cycling, run/walking, running, resting and cycling combination I had undertaken on a cold morning. The truth of the matter though is that this was my first real signs that I had Multiple Sclerosis.
At the end of the month I went along to the celebrations at Cambridge parkrun as it was their 2nd birthday. In those days there was an annual points competition. Points were awarded each week to the first 100 runners of each gender (1st got 100, 2nd 99 etc etc and volunteers got 100 points for the first 4 times that you volunteered in a year) As I was a volunteer timekeeper that day I received 100 points and therefore was joint top – Didn’t stay there for long.
Moving on to February and I can still remember how cold I felt.
Following some snow on the Friday, as I was RD that morning, I got to Valentines very early in order to do a full course inspection. Other than one section of black ice I decided the route was perfectly fine to allow the run to go ahead.
As can be seen the paths were pretty clear whilst the finish area, which was all on grass still had snow on it
Perfectly safe as far as I was concerned.
A week later and everything looked different in the park as we celebrated Valentines first birthday!
Tradition dictates fancy dress at parkrun as often as possible and definitely on the birthday so here is me giving out trophies to our points table winners (see previous comment on this subject for the Cambridge parkrun celebrations) dressed in an inflatable Sumo outfit.
By the end of the month, I had new digs which overlooked the park making my Saturday commute very short.
Having been out of action since early January it was great seeing myself all ready to re-join the runners at the start of March. However, looking at my personal records I couldn’t see either a run or volunteer credit for that day. Instead, I was going to use this as the first opportunity to show myself in one of the lesser spotted Nike volunteer tops. Which 11 years later in 2023 I was still wearing to parkrun!
Having trawled through Facebook posts I have discovered that my long-awaited return to running lasted just 1.5KMs and the pictures taken that day of me in the finish funnel were very inaccurate.
At the end of March Valentines parkrun held event number 59 and for the first time ever over 100 people finished the run. Oh, how times have changed over the years!
Attendance that day was slightly boosted by local runner Fauja Singh turning up. Fauja was considered to be the world’s oldest marathon runner, however, due to issues surrounding his actual birth date none of his times have been ratified.
When you look at the statistics at the bottom of the parkrun UK website, you will see that his time that day is still considered to be the Age Graded record (at time of writing)
That was the end of my first year at parkrun. I managed to complete 24 runs at Valentines (18), Cambridge (4), Greenwich (1) and Bromley (1) and received 22 volunteer credits (Valentines 20 and Cambridge 2) and on 6 of the occasions when I ran, I also received a volunteer credit.
At an early stage in year 2 of my parkrun journey, I clearly decided it was time to stop the long commute to Cambridge when I was in Ipswich at a weekend and I enquired of parkrun HQ whether there had been any enquiries from the Ipswich area about starting an event as I might be able to give the team some occasional help. At that stage there were 112 parkrun events in the UK. HQ came back to me and said there had been no enquiries from Ipswich but they had one from Forest Heath. Unfortunately, that was too far for me, however, later that same day I got another email from HQ telling me that an inquiry had just come in from Ipswich Borough Council (IBC). I got all the contact details from them and later that day I had my first ever conversation with Adam Keer at IBC. From that conversation I discovered they were still in the early stages of planning and they were hoping to hold a meeting at some stage with interested bodies from Suffolk County Council, IBC, parkrun and a few local runners. I advised I would be happy to come along and share my experience as an Event Director and offer them some help getting set up. I’m unsure when I got the details about the meeting, but according to Facebook I went on a reconnaissance trip to Chantry Park on Tuesday 29th May.
This was my first ever trip to the park and it was certainly different to Valentines.
The start of June 2012 saw us receive some distinguished guests at Valentines with both Paul Sinton-Hewitt and Tom Williams in attendance.
The start of the month also saw me planning my comeback run after a six-month absence. Following physio advice, I was adopting a run/walk strategy.
I obviously took all the advice given as I clearly opted for a sprint finish on my return.
Surprisingly with my track record, I managed to run the following week as well.
By the end of the month though things were about to change big time.
Not surprisingly I remember the day very well. I turned up quite early as I wanted to take another walk around the park. On this occasion though I was joined by Jo Sinton-Hewitt who was at the meeting as the main (some would say only) parkrun event activator. I recall having a brief conversation with her about an area of the park that had potential to be either a start or finish area. At the meeting itself was Adam Keer for IBC, Colin Grogan for SCC, myself and 3 local runners, John Adams, Ali Ostler and Paul Horne and Terry McEntee from Suffolk Sports. I suspect others were also in attendance. I don’t recall much about the meeting other than me giving a talk about my experience at Valentines as ED. IBC and SCC agreed to pick up 50% each of the set up costs. Despite having no intention to, my Facebook status fully explains how the evening finished for me.
This however, was just the start of an action packed parkrun weekend! Whilst it was regular parkrun on the Saturday where I completed my third parkrun in as many weeks. Sunday, being the longest day of the year, was known in those days as “Longest parkrun day” This event, which was not organised by parkrun, was comprised of seven 5km runs at locations where a well known Saturday event took place. In 2012 there were several of these events across the Country and I was involved in the North London version. Please note I was not doing any running. Having cycled 12 miles from Ilford to East Barnet , myself and Kieran Chapman, another Valentines parkrunner arrived at Oak Hill park in plenty of time for a 9:00 start. After that it was a 10:30 start at Ally Pally, then midday at Hampstead Heath, 13:30 at Highbury Fields, 15:00 at Mile End, 16:30 at Wanstead Flats finishing at Valentines Park at 18:00. 11 people completed all 7 runs, some ran between events, some cycled and others drove. People were able to drop in and out at any stage, so some did a different number of events and others did just 1. Roughly 20 started at the first event and just under 100 completed the last event.
Oak Hill
Ally Pally
Hampstead Heath
Highbury Fields
Mile End
Wanstead Flats
Valentines Park
Having cycled 46 miles it is no surprise that I posted the following.
This event clearly got me into proper tourist mode as I then proceeded to attend 5 different parkruns in as many weeks.
Firstly it was Gladstone parkrun event number 1, my first attendance at an Inaugural, however, as it was Glen Turners 1st event as Event Director and I had been helping to train him over at Valentines, it seemed only right to turn up and be tail runner for him (in those days it was a tail runner).
The following week I crossed over into Norfolk for the first time to try and pick up some tips from the ED about starting parkruns in a new County. Sadly by the time I finished almost everyone had gone home. Instead I walked back to the car and contacted the team at Valentines to do my parkfaffing.
Meanwhile I was also designing the potential course at Chantry Park for Ipswich parkrun. A very earl effort can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIpdDq7vOlo after filming this clip, I went to do another circuit but had a little accident on my bike.
Next on my tourist trail was another trip to Cambridge then a week at Valentines. It was a slightly different run that week though as two of our regular runners had also been torch bearers for the London 2012 Olympic flame relay and they brought them along for us to all see and play with.
The following week was the inaugural at Barking parkrun, however, during the week I was in attendance at the test event. Most of the team for Barking had also been regulars at Valentines so it was a normal thing to do in those days. After the test event, which was conducted by both Paul and Jo Sinton Hewitt we went to the pub for drinks and watching the new team being taught how to use the FMS system that was in use at that time. The interesting thing from this inaugural though is that I received a volunteer credit for tail runner. I clearly didn’t do that role though as I finished 68th out of 83.
Given that we hadn’t really met before the initial meeting about Ipswich parkrun, the three members of the core team thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner and have a good chat.
Ali’s post on Facebook, hit the nail on it’s head.
By the 17th August (test event night) we had expanded the core team to 4 with the addition of Colin Shaw. His is quite a funny story. He sent in an email saying he was interested in helping out with the event. Looking at the results system his was a 5 digit number suggesting some experience to me with a 6 digit number. I snapped up the offer and due to his low number invited him to the core team. It was several years until I discovered the truth and although he had registered for parkrun very early, his first time volunteering was at the Ipswich inaugural and his first run was June 2013!!.
Although the test night was 3 weeks before the inaugural, this was to accommodate the fact that I was a Gamesmaker at the London 2012 Paralympics so that was the best night to have it.
We managed to get 19 local runners along and the feedback was very positive. The 19 were as follows.
What is pleasing to note is that at least 12 of the 19 continued to parkrun for many years after this test event. We also managed to get ourselves a regular volunteer who had just turned up to the event as her son was familiar with one in Nottingham. Once we were established as an event, it didn’t take us long to invite Marcia onto the core team.
This leads very nicely to the Ipswich Inaugural event. Like every inaugural event we had no idea how many people would turn up. In those days though we would scream and shout about inaugural events. Turning up to inaugurals wasn’t a big deal then, in fact it was encouraged
Based on Events in existence on 13th May 2023 Ipswich was the joint 163rd event worldwide and joint 136rd in the UK. That compares with 1,947 worldwide on 13th May and 786 in the UK.
I was quite nervous during the build up to the big day so it was a good job I had my Gamesmaker duties at the Paralympics to keep me occupied. Plus, by that stage I had lots of tickets for events. On a daily basis I was checking the registration numbers for Ipswich and was happy with the progress.
On the day itself Adam (IBC) had arranged for two local Olympic torchbearers to be there – Helen Davies, local international athlete and Paul Sheldrake who is big in the local tennis scene. I used them for the main start line photograph.
Naturally I also captured them with the core team.
The morning itself couldn’t have gone any better as far as I was concerned. 95 participants in the run of which 71 were first time parkrunners including my son Cian.
Five weeks later my parkrun journey went off on a different tangent. At that time there were very few staff working for parkrun HQ and as I had developed a working relationship with the Sinton-Hewitts and because I was slightly experienced I was asked if I could attend the Southend parkrun inaugural on behalf of HQ to give the team any support that was required to ensure a smooth start. At this stage, inaugural help was undertaken by Jo Sinton-Hewitt, Anita Afonso and Danny Norman, all parkrun employees at the time. Matt Shields in Northern Ireland, James Saunders who was a parkrunner based in Southampton and Alister Robson another parkrunner based in Durham. For the Southend Inaugural I took on the tailrunner role and had a fun morning.
After the run we went to the local Harvester for breakfast and to do the results. Breakfast was easy but results weren’t as the ED (Alex) hadn’t received his log in details and my access was restricted to Valentines and Ipswich.
During breakfast I received a call from the team at Ipswich to sort out an issue. The first three runners had missed out a big chunk of the course as they went straight on at Chantry House rather than turning right. As they cut out about 600m I opted to remove them from the results as “they hadn’t completed 5km)
After breakfast we went round to Alex’s to sort out the results. By that stage PSH had sorted out the access issues. We did have a major issue though as we had 1 more time than tokens given out. It took ages to figure out and we had to resort to looking at the photographs where we were able to figure out that a guide runner who had been timed in, hadn’t been given a finish token! A learning point for all concerned. As a consequence of the issue with the results PSH changed my webFMS settings which resulted in me having full admin rights!
Not long after this my involvement in event activation grew a little when I joined Jo Sinton-Hewitt and the core team of a potential event in Chelmsford at a meeting with the local council.
By the end of November 2012, with much hindsight, my undiagnosed MS was kicking in again. At Ipswich I had promised one of our new runners, Linda Young, that I would help her get around the course without stopping. On that date though by the end of the first lap I knew I wouldn’t be able to do all of the run, instead I strategically paused at the crossroads and shouted encouragement to her around the heron pond and also around the football pitch. I then joined her for most of the final 600m before stopping and letting her finish on her own. Until I was eventually diagnosed in 2014, we always referred to that day as the day she broke me!
A couple of weeks after this the Chelmsford Central team came to Ipswich. The purpose of the visit was to give them some experience at some of the roles they would need to undertake when their event started. Gerry McGovern took on the RD role, Len Marten was Barcode Scanner, Tracy Rayner was a Marshal and Sarah Davies was on Finish Tokens. Gaining experience by taking over major roles at an existing event was eventually to become the model used for all new events the following year.
Having not been back to my other event Valentines, since the week before Ipswich started, I felt it was time to stop being the Event Director in order to be fair to that event. I was very fortunate to have the perfect person to take over.
This is also the first time that I introduce the phrase “parkrun ambassador” into a post! Shortly after this it was no longer possible to be an Event Director at different 5km events.
The year saw the first Christmas Day parkrun at Chantry Park. 60 runners turned up to have one of the wettest parkruns ever.
During 2012 I completed 14 parkruns and recorded 42 volunteer credits. These were done at 7 events including 5 new ones, and 8 times I both ran and volunteered. Taking my totals to Run – 37, Volunteer 57, of which 13 where I did both.