With Covid-19 still about parkrun didn’t return during Q1 of 2021, however, it was announced that juniors would return on Sunday 11th April.
In view of this it was decided to hold a very low key test event at Rendlesham Forest. Invited along to actually run were Heather Bush, Mark Flatman and Nessie Thorpe. Colin was utilised as the guide having helped to design the course.
Heather, Mark and Nessie were also members of the Ipswich junior core team so we knew they could be trusted. All three of them absolutely loved the course and Heather has one of the earliest logged runs on the course as recorded on Strava.
After an absence of 1 year and 1 month junior parkrun, or more accurately some events from junior parkrun were set to resume on Sunday 11th April
Sadly for me there were no local junior events resuming that day so my return was delayed by a further week. In fact the nearest event to us was in Thetford which was too far even for me.
I had to wait a further week before being able to restart. It was just what I needed
and I even wrote an article about it for the work “magazine” (shown as 3 pictures below)
After 3 weeks of touring at Kesgrave we finally got all permission back from our landlord and Ipswich junior parkrun was able to restart on 9th May.
Not surprisingly I was a little nervous the night before
The date mentioned in the post is in reference to the inaugural Ipswich junior event. With all my experience you would be forgiven if you thought this should be a breeze in the park, however, despite having had 3 weeks of practice at Kesgrave, I was still very nervous being around large groups of people. Being vulnerable is not a good position to be in, however, I was really in need of having some real normality in my life. I felt marginally safer that parkruns are outdoors, however these were still early days as far as I was concerned.
Not surprisingly there were some changes and when people first arrived, we were spread out much more than before, however, we were back!!
As per usual a post on Facebook summed it up nicely
The return did cause a couple of shocks as a few of the new runners were the children of 5km parkrunners or my swimming coach and having missed out on 15 months of them growing it was a surprise to realise they were now old enough to take part.
With juniors back open there was increased focus on 5km events restarting. Initially there was hope of a restart on 5th June however that was delayed due to not enough landowners giving permission to restart. On 11th June parkrun announced they had received enough permissions and would restart on June 26th. However, following an announcement from the Prime Minister, confirming a delay to Step 4 of the Roadmap until Monday 19 July 2021, it became parkrun UKs intention that 5k events in England would restart on Saturday 24 July.
Reading through the new parkrun Volunteer Hub, I noticed what I considered to be another major change in their guiding principles. In a section about wheelchairs I found what I considered to be another new segment. The paragraph reads
“Further, where individuals have long-term conditions that would prevent them from propelling themselves in a wheelchair, we are happy for them to register, be pushed around the course or use a motorised chair, and receive a time. Mobility scooters are also allowed at our events. This does not extend to people with short-term conditions or injured, non-disabled people.”
The introduction of Mobility scooters was a major change and opened up a new possibility for me.
It is with much thanks to the new team at Felixstowe that the task became slightly easier, as they were prepared to accept me as their Volunteer Coordinator which meant I would still be volunteering every week as VC, and then I could get my run credit in anywhere and not just as a tailroller.
5km parkrun returned on Saturday 24th July and I was in my new role of tail-scooter. Sadly there are no pictures from that week, however, the following week we were at Ipswich carrying out the same role and this time there is a picture.
I obviously needed some more branded merchandise to go with my new roving roles so I had a new facemask made for when I was going to parkrun events
Towards the end of August I was finally able to fulfil the volunteering task I should have completed on the day we returned from New Zealand. As the nearest event to Heathrow we were scheduled to be there the day we returned, however, Covid-19 scuppered that. Instead we rearranged it for a day we were visiting Kew Gardens. It was also an opportunity to try out yet another custom hi-viz
At Osterley we also met somebody who was going to start a junior event in a park that I frequented as a youngster – Kennington park. That went straight onto my list of places to visit in the future.
With the scooter I now had a serious ability to tackle some of those courses I hadn’t got a time at before but seriously should have done. Next on my target list was Kesgrave, however, I wasn’t overly positive of navigating around the “woods” section of the course so Hilary and I had to go and do a dummy run to be sure. Slightly hair raising in some places but I managed it which got it the seal of approval for trying.
It was quite surprising how bumpy the course actually is!
The seven year theme continued into my next big milestone as a few weeks later I finally “participated” at Ipswich juniors
In the background meanwhile, work was still going on with Rendlesham Forest parkrun. Having been bubbling along in the background parkrun were finally at the stage where they were invoicing for the funding. Due to my involvement in the organisation and how much enjoyment I had received as part of my involvement I had agreed with Hilary some time before, that I would cover the final £750 that was remaining
That leads nicely on to the 7th birthday of Ipswich juniors and how much of a great team of friends the core team and family had become
In a major change parkrun announced in early October that there was finally equality with regards the milestone tee shirts and you could now order the same tee shirts (50, 100, 250, 500) for volunteering as you could for running
Although Hilary and I had both gone along to Storeys Field back in September, one of us forgot to take her barcode and even then despite having to be scanned using the virtual volunteer app parkrun still didn’t allow you to use your phone for showing your barcode, so we went back.
Whilst it doesn’t mean much to most people, this is also the day that parkrun closed a loop in how the volunteer count worked. From this day onwards you could only receive 1 volunteer count increment per day. Prior to this if you received volunteer credits at separate events your volunteer count could increase by more than 1. For example, on September 11th, I was tail at Storeys Field and Volunteer Co-ordinator for Felixstowe my count went up by 2. Same scenario on 9th October but the increase was just 1.
Then I had a nice item of clothing arrive in the post
At the time of purchasing, I had received 719 volunteer credits.
At the end of October two big things happened – Firstly I was able to accompany the legend that is James Kelly to the completion of his 249 run
Secondly, my stint as VC at Felixstowe came to an end. Therefore, to continue to get a volunteer credit and participation credit I needed to do a lot of tail scootering which I successfully did for the remainder of the year at Felixstowe, Ipswich or Valentines.
A big surprise happened in November when I was tagged in a Facebook post by a long term friend
It might have taken years before he did one but it was great to see Darren had finely crossed over to the dark side. Just a shame they hadn’t registered. He is now a fully committed parkrunner, on 23rd December 2023 he was on 79 run credits, at 42 different events in 3 separate countries.
In addition, November 21st saw an expansion to the Rendlesham Forest core team with the addition of Heather and Perry Bush. No time was wasted ordering their core team tee shirts.
December saw me hit a major volunteering milestone at Ipswich juniors
The final two pictures for 2021 don’t need much explanation
And this is one of the only pictures that I have seen which shows all the volunteer shirts.
The other one will appear in the 2022 section.
During 2021 I completed 22 parkruns and recorded 66 volunteer credits. These were done at 11 events including 2 new ones, and 17 times I both ran and volunteered. This took my run total to 95 and took my Volunteer number to 741 of which 63 times I did both. These were completed at 122 different events.