The second Saturday of 2013 saw me in my new “parkrun UK Ambassador” role at the inaugural for Wimpole Estate parkrun. As would become almost traditional for me, I was tailrunner that day. Sadly there wasn’t too much running as my hip flexors decided this was the day to really play up. To say it was a struggle would be an understatement. Not surprisingly it was a PW for me at 52:58 and over 6 minutes away from the penultimate runner. On the positive side though the after event breakfast was absolutely fantastic.
It was a busy weekend as on the Sunday it was the test event for Chelmsford Central.
The following week was the turn of my first full activation, having been involved from the offset.
Having snowed the night before, there was a good chance that the event might have been cancelled. I arrived nice and early by which time the ED had conducted a course inspection and the course was declared safe to go ahead.
There were 82 runners at the event and given the conditions that should have prewarned us that this was going to become a very large event.
Later that very same day I posted the following Obviously, this had nothing to do with running as I had been marshalling that day. Instead, this was in connection with a vote by Event Directors on who they would like to represent them on the parkrun UK board.
A further post explains it
With one new event underway it wasn’t long before another one was underway. This time it was from an Ipswich parkrunner who wanted to set one up nearer to them.
Meanwhile back at Ipswich the weekly attendance was consistently over 100 and this was starting to impact on the condition of the grass sections of the course. As I was determined not to spoil the look of the park, I got agreement from the UK general manager, that I could have a temporary home at another park. This mean’t I needed to scope out the potential at several parks. Over a couple of weekends I inspected, Bourne, Holywells, Christchurch, Orwell Country park and it was very clear that Christchurch was the best alternative as the route would all be on Path and therefore wouldn’t have the same problem as Chantry. What was even better was there was already a 5km route measured out at the park. We had to make a slight adjustment to that route but were very happy with the route. On the 2nd March the switch over to Christchurch park was made.
Like all great leaders I didn’t hang around for too long as I needed to put my ambassador hat on for two more inaugurals.
However as indicated by the following post the first of those weekends was going to start with a very frantic Saturday. Not only was it going to be a major change to parkrun in Suffolk, there was also going to be a change for parkrun UK which would knock on to parkrun globally
First off was my parkrun baby number 3 Brandon Country Park parkrun. This was the event that HQ had first told me about when I enquired about Ipswich, so it had taken a while to get to launch stage. I don’t recall too much about the lead up to the event other than attending a couple of meetings. JSH had designed the course. 57 turned up for the event and I was tail. On that day I was accompanied by a young lady who was doing her first parkrun. She had come to Brandon despite living closer to another event but didn’t feel comfortable going there as she wasn’t a runner. Didn’t bother me in the slightest, we mainly walked the course but every so often we ran from one tree to another. Although she hasn’t attended another parkrun, I believe she enjoyed the experience as several years later she made a contribution to one of my fund raising initiatives.
On the way home from Brandon, I stopped of at Nowton park in Bury St. Edmunds to meet a new team who were looking to set up and have a look around the location and their initial ideas for a route. Unfortunately, a few tweaks were needed to ensure it met parkrun course design guidelines.
With parkrun becoming more and more popular and with a significant number of teams wanting to start events it was very clear that the infrastructure in place at that time would not be sufficient to ensure there was consistency when new events were started. That afternoon there was a Google “hang out” with PSH, JSH, Anita, Tom and Danny from HQ, together with myself, Alister and James (local/regional Ambassadors) to discuss the introduction of a UK Ambassadors community that would utilise some of the very dedicated volunteers from all over the country that had expressed an interest in further helping the development of parkrun. Over the course of a couple of hours a solid foundation was built and this was then going to be discussed with the identified individuals during a weekend conference that was scheduled to take place in May that year.
Following this was a trip across the border into Norfolk, where I was on duty at the inaugural for Mulbarton parkrun. As rainy days went this was a real wet one as can be seen in the picture below.
Not surprisingly, the event became known fondly as Mudbarton.
A couple of weeks at home and the following picture shows what a crazy finish line we used that first year at Christchurch. A run up a gentle slope followed by a sharp right for about 10 metres before the finish line. It’s not like we couldn’t have moved the start line back 20 metres.
It wasn’t long before parkrun baby number 4 needed delivering. This time it was Colchester Castle. Quite probably the toughest course I designed with two steep ascents from the bottom of the park up to the top by the castle. They did like to build them on hills! At the time Ipswich was averaging about 100 a week so I suggested to the ED that he would be looking at 60 – 70 because of the hill and a slight narrow pinch point. Whilst the ED agreed with me, having looked at the results in 2023 for the first 450 events, they have never been below 100!
Next up was another inaugural
This time it was a trip to Cambridgeshire and the first run at Huntingdon parkrun. This event was set up by one of my Cambridge parkrun friends so there was no way I was going to miss it, plus I was there with my ambassador hat on.
220 at this inaugural making it my largest by some distance.
4th May was the final week for Ipswich parkrun at Christchurch Park. Due to the date it was naturally a Star Wars related fancy dress. In addition we had decided to make it a “reverse route”. It was a warm day and there was a lot of activity in the park with people walking into town early. It was a record attendance that week so we had 152 runners in a busy park. As ED and RD I was somewhat concerned and was very pleased when we finished without incident.
Shortly after this was the first parkrun UK Ambassador weekend
For me, the weekend represented one of the biggest and best changes, that happened to parkrun. Although an outline structure had been created during the Google Hang out, this was the perfect way to bring together a group of dedicated parkrun enthusiasts to discuss all things parkrun and how we could help the organisation grow. There were approximately 30 – 35 of us in attendance along with staff from HQ. We all met up on the Friday night and got to know each other a little. Saturday, naturally started with a parkrun and as we were in Birmingham, Canon Hill was the destination. Not really a surprise though as the venue for the first conference was the Birmingham MAC which was in the same park.
We covered a wide range of topics on the Saturday and there was a real buzz about the place. Don’t panic though, it wasn’t all work, work, work. Saturday evening was all about letting our hair down and really getting to know each other. The evening was spent at a localish Chinese restaurant, where to help break the ice whilst we were eating, there was a parkrun related quiz
Even though we left the restaurant quite late, for some of us we still had several hours of talking in us which led to a few of us driving back to Canon Hill Park at 03:00 in the morning for a freedom run. As the non-drinker I was the designated driver. There was disappointment though as the park was locked!
Sunday was another action packed day and we all left feeling very energised and ready to take parkrun to the next level.
A week later it was Ambassador time again as it was time for some course measuring for a potential event at Maldon Prom. By the looks of it a lot of measuring took place.
Futher Ambassadoring continued at the start of the following month at an event which was probably my most contentious as I had a falling out with the ED after I advised him that there was no point starting the event and then having a break for 2 weeks whilst other events were happening in the park.
The test event went smoothly and then 3 weeks later the Inaugural event went ahead and once again I was tail runner.
The Cambridge and Huntingdon parkrun family came along.
It was at about this time that I realised that if I walked every week until the end of August I should be able to get my 50 tee shirt in time for Ipswich’s 1st birthday. I was therefore on a mission to be the first Ipswich parkrunner to get a shirt. In those days tee shirts were sent out to EDs on the first Sunday of the month. This meant I could only take two weeks off. This was almost taken out of my hands though as I was already scheduled to be RD at both Ipswich and Huntingdon (where I was stepping in for the core team as they were all away) so I would have no spare weeks!!
It is strange looking back, how themes repeat, as personal challenges were going to crop up a couple more times in my journey. More ambassador time was then needed as yet another new event director was looking to start up and wanted my views on the potential course.
The final week of getting to 50 was also the inaugural for parkrun baby number 6 (although technically speaking it was Grandbaby number 1 as it was a child of Chelmsford Central). As per usual I was Tailrunner. This, however, was the first event to have an incident as one of the runners had a medical emergency and we had to call for an ambulance. I waited with them until the ambulance arrived and departed with them. Despite the time lost, I had to complete the 5km in order to get my shirt. As I knew the course I told the team that they could start taking down when the penultimate runner finished. In the end I finished 23 minutes after the previous finisher, however, the team left out the finish funnel so that I could celebrate my 50th in style
And two weeks later at the Ipswich 1st birthday I received my 50 shirt, which obviously I had customised!
Immediately after the regular run we held an awards presentation with lots of goodies. As mentioned previously there was a “points table” so we gave out trophies to our first winners – Mens Robin Harper, Ladies Mandy Godbold, Girls Lucy Brighty and Boys Matt Bird. We also gave out some other things such as Baker of the year which was Sally Solomon, Volunteer of the Year which I think was John Driver, Young volunteer of the year Sian Ostler and Linda Young won parkrunner of the year as awarded by the core team. In addition to the above we also gave out a selection of photos that had been enlarged and put in a frame for the recipient.
October that year saw more effort made to keep us at Chantry park for as long as possible. That year we came up with 3 alternative routes to use when the ground got wet and soggy.
The three routes were Blue plus yellow, Blue plus Green and then Blue plus red. The Red section on the extreme left was only only used as part of the second lap on the weeks that route was used.
The end of October saw a very pleasant surprise as I received the following email
In addition, Ipswich parkrun was also shortlisted for Project of the year.
Then it was a quick trip back to Valentines to help the team with a course redesign. Not as straight forward as we had hoped it to be based on this memory
A lot of measuring went into this day and we kept having issues with getting the course to be 5km long. Eventually we did manage to get it right. The final course is still in use at time of writing almost 10 years later.
After several years of trying, at the start of November 2013, I finally made the sports section of the local newspaper as a result of my nomination-
At the same time other parts of Suffolk were hoping to get on the parkrun map
Which lead nicely to the day of the Suffolk Sports Awards. Parkrun related activities were up for two awards and the first one that had the winner announced was The Unsung Hero award
It wasn’t to be for me and I had to settle up with being a runner up. However, as I had said previously, just being nominated was a major surprise and unexpected. To be shortlisted was unbelievable. Winning would have been great but I was very happy with how it turned out.
Less than an hour later and Ipswich parkun were up for an award and this was the result:
During the lead up to the award the following was said about Ipswich parkrun
The final pictures from the awards evening were -
Shortly after this I was interviewed on Ipswich Community Radio. https://www.facebook.com/Ipswichparkrun/videos/560754977342007
A few days later the Event Director for the 4th Suffolk parkrun event made their announcement
And a month later and the final course measurements were completed
On 21st December 2013 we started a new and very worthy tradition at Ipswich parkrun.
As stated at the time - We have a Sue Ryder Care home in our park specialising in giving nursing care for people who have complex neurological needs. They have 31 full time residents and one of our core team thought it would be great if we could take along some prezzies and spend some time with them. The Ipswich parkrun community didn't let us down. We had over 40 presents donated and as you can tell from the photo almost 40 of us went to the house and sung a few Carols. I am an incredibly proud Event Director.
To the best of my knowledge this tradition continued until at least 2019 – The last Christmas before Covid struck. The tradition returned in 2023
A few days later was the Christmas Day parkrun with an amazing 154 taking part including the parkrun COO Tom Williams. BBC Radio Suffolk were in attendance and I was interviewed for a Christmas Day broadcast of my own. The interview can be found here https://www.facebook.com/Ipswichparkrun/videos/566942216723283
The year finished with half of the team doing lots of measuring of Christchurch park as part of getting ready for leaving Chantry for the winter months.
During 2013 I completed 13 parkruns and recorded 49 volunteer credits. These were done at 13 events including 10 new ones, and 11 times I both ran and volunteered. Taking my totals to Run – 50, Volunteer 106, of which 24 times I did both. These were completed at 19 different events.