It was my (Matthew Pattison's) turn as RD at this weeks Huddersfield juniors parkrun and with a full volunteer roster and the weather fairies working their magic it was all set up to be a fantastic junior parkrun morning.
This weeks run finished with a lot of happy juniors, with 56 first timers and 35 new PB's out of the field of 155 runners. Following on from Leeds parkruns trip to the moon (see their Facebook page if confused) so far our juniors have run from Greenhead park to the outskirts of Berlin and by this time next week we will have visited Zary parkrun in Poland. (http://www.parkrun.pl/zary/)
The pre-event setup is becoming a favourite of the juniors team's children as they like to draw the start and finish lines and add pictures, arrows and messages. This also makes them feel more a part of the event and even helps them make friends with the other juniors.
I am assured that this is a rocket a firework rocket drawn by my son Dexter (6) and his brother Clark (3) helped him with the finish line.
The run as a whole is becoming a very slick and well oiled machine but the behind the scenes action is still being fine tuned and altered slightly by each of the team as they take their turn as RD. Plus we are there backing each other up as we go and make sure that we make a junior parkrun that the juniors can enjoy and be proud of.
As the junior, parents and marshals started to stream through the park gates there was a buzz in the air and the smiles on the juniors faces was amazing and the sun just topped it off.
After the run brief we attempted a Marshal Mexican wave to make sure they can see each other, we know they can see each other but this week it failed. Maybe we will try it again next week as it's a great way to get the juniors involved at the start, with the juniors starting the Mexican wave down towards marshal 1.
The juniors were all set off safely and before we could blink we had some of them completing lap 1 which still catches us of guard at how quick they are. The funnel was set out and we clapped the remaining junior on to their 2nd laps and again we were almost caught off guard as our first finisher crossed the line in a course record time and our first sub 7 minute time. 3 events in and we've already broken the 7 minute barrier, where will our course record time settle at in a few weeks time, it keeps getting broken, but that wasn't it. The time he finished in was also an age grade record for the course. plus not settling for that, our first girl across the line also broke the girls course record and completing the trifecta of course records.
This weeks run finished with a lot of happy juniors, with 56 first timers and 35 new PB's out of the field of 155 runners. Following on from Leeds parkruns trip to the moon (see their Facebook page if confused) so far our juniors have run from Greenhead park to the outskirts of Berlin and by this time next week we will have visited Zary parkrun in Poland. (http://www.parkrun.pl/zary/)
I wonder how far our juniors will travel over then next year or is that thinking too far ahead too soon.
Keep running everyone
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