Huddersfield juniors parkrun event #3 in brilliant sunshine

Just 3 events in and we are starting to get some stand out performances from our juniors with new course records set from both the boys and the girls this week.

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.

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

A new parkrun volunteer and the Huddersfield 10k

This weekend saw a few firsts and some familiar sights and faces.

It all started at parkrun where SJ made her volunteering debut as a barcode scanner, she had a great time but nearly managed to scare one man into never coming to Huddersfield parkrun ever again. Dexter and I were running together and managed a respectable 32.52 time. 

When we crossed the line we headed straight to S-J's scanning queue and waited until it was our turn, and we got a great welcome.   After Dexter and I had had our barcodes scanned we each received a kiss from SJ (Mummy) and moved on. The bloke behind us was a little scared and could quite easily of jumped scanning queues until SJ reassured him that he didn't have to give her a kiss and it wasn't a mandatory part of the barcode scanning process. We all had a bit of a giggle about it and hope it doesn't put the guy off.

There was also a Huddersfield parkrun debut of our friend Ben, and with his participation pushes my total of friends and family introduced to parkrun to 20. He made a great debut with a 25 min run and managed to get in a few photos along the way too.

Let's hope that Ben returns to try and beat his PB, I'm sure he will. This week also saw PBs for Paul (Spuggy) and my sister Jodie, awesome job guys.

 

Not everyone had such success this week and this weeks failure goes to my friend Steve who was suppose to be the 25 min pacer, but because he didn't have a bib and only a few people knew this was his role he failed to hit his time. Not by a few seconds but a few minutes, and not even slower he ended up with a 20.41mins utter fail, but we had a laugh about it. He was supposed to be resting his legs ready for the Huddersfield 10k the next day but just couldn't quite contain himself.

On Sunday it was the annual Huddersfield 10k organised by the Huddersfield Road Runners, it was also a very windy day perfect for a tough hilly 10k run!  Last years Huddersfield 10k was my first official 10k race I had taken part in and was a completely different experience for me. If you want to read my blog about that day to compare the two then please check out my back catalogue. This year was a lot different but at the same time there was many similarities. I met Steve there about 10 o'clock and we collected our numbers then we wandered about for a bit looking at everyone's warm up routines and rituals. As like last year I barely did any warm up, a few stretches here and a little jog there, but some of the other runners were taking it a lot more seriously. There was many familier faces whether it was from parkrun or from last years event which helped make it a more relaxed and friendly event compared with the unknown feeling of last year.

The layout of the start/finish this year was different and that was mainly because they were using chip technology for the first time this year. This meant that there was big blue mats lying across the road in front of the rugby club house and there was lots of buzzers and beeps going off as they were testing the set up. The last thing you need is the technology to fail at the last minute especially as there was nearly 600 runners looking forward to getting there times at the end of the day. As the start time got close everyone started to claim there starting grid positions in the funnel and then Matthew Kelly (not the famous one!) gave a run brief before we set off.

At the sound of the air horn 600 runners set off up the 3km hill towards Netherton, because the road was closed off for a small period of time people could quite easily jostle for postion and not have their pace affected too much. About halfway up the hill there was some road works that the race organisers didn't know about until the day, but luckily the workman that was there had stopped the traffic lights on red so we could pass with ease. At the summit you get another kick in the teeth as the strong winds that were forecasted blasted you in the face with grit and dust from the road but as we headed back down the other side of the hill it eased off. The cheers we all got from the crowds watching at Netherton was great and really does help no matter how tired you are, so as we hit the bottom of the hill again you kind of miss it and could really do with another boost as you get to the bottom of the next  one. This hill was the killer hill last year so I was determined not to let it beat this time, so I slowed my pace so that I didn't over do it and throw up at the top again!  All was going well and I was feeling ok there was no way I was going to throw up but I had slowed my pace too much and I ended up walking the last 10/15 metres of the climb. It still beat me a bit but the happiness of not throwing up made up for it and as soon as I reached the top I was off running again.

I don't know if it's age or whether the loss of my breakfast last year but I didn't remember there being so many downhills on this section but it was great to get back into a pace and breathing rhythm before having to climb the next steep and long hill back up to Netherton. Back at the top there was yet more great support from people on the street just cheering you none stop, it was ace. Also at this point I had started a friendly rivalry with a woman, as we kept switching places, I would be in front then she would find another gear and overtake me, then at the hills I would again pass her then at the top and on the flat she would catch me and pass me again. It was also useful for taking our minds off the tiredness in our legs and at the same time it was helping us to push that little bit extra. We kept with each other down the really steep hill into Armatidge Bridge and swapped place on the slight hill upto the main road and I managed to pick up my pace all the way down the road until I reached the road leading to the rugby and health club. Just as we turned into the road she passed me and I said to her that I'm gonna push you all the way, but that was an empty gesture as I was spent. I was overtaken by a couple of other runners and cheered on by a growing crowd before I crossed the finish line in a time of 51 mins. I was in two minds about my time as I was aiming for a sub 50 min time but then at the same time I was 8 minutes quicker than last year and managed not to throw up. There were lots of positives to take out of this run but at the same it made me realise that if I'm going to do the Huddersfield half marathon then I'm gonna have to up my training.

I must thank everyone who tried to talk to me afterwards and give me pats on the back etc. I wasn't the most talkative or responsive for at least 10 mins after.  It's nice to know so many fellow runners that will cheer you on, congratulate you and pick you up when your feeling crap after putting everything into the last sprint of a run. Most of you I have only met over the last year and I look forward to growing these friendships and find new ones too. Roll on the Huddersfield 10k 2015 to see how things have changed again in only a year

And as always Keep running everyone

Merry Christmas and a Happy Double parkrun 2014

Happy new year everyone and I hope Santa brought you all some amazing gift this Christmas. Most of our Christmas was centred around parkrun ands it's many holiday events. As well as the runs there were plenty of presents and food and lots of family time.

At last count in the past 15 days Dexter has done 4 parkruns and 19 in total (almost 2 and a half marathons and for a 5 year old that's incredible), SJ has done 5, and 15 in total since giving birth to Flynn (just as incredible) and I have done 6 because of the double on New Year's Day and 26 in total since June.

These runs have been some of the best parkruns I have done with various fancy dress and festivities involved. So much so that the parkrunday after Christmas Day when I was running in just my usual attire it felt strange and is almost felt a little naked. 

This wore off by New Year's Day as my focus was on the excitement of doing the double parkrun of Dewsbury then Huddersfield. There was a good number of regular Huddersfield parkrun runners at Dewbury parkrun doing the double including the EDs Simon and Mark, and the rest of the Huddersfield running bunnies. 

Then this parkrunday it was completely back to normal but with a few extra faces and some new gear to run in. It had been my birthday this past Thursday and SJ had got me some new running clothes which I immediately donned for this parkrunday, all matching colours too. Plus I was trying out a new toy I got for Christmas from Santa, a video camera in a pair of sunglasses which can record in full HD and for a good couple of hours too. I asked Santa for them specifically for the Yorkshire Warrior in April but knew I needed to get used to them so why not try them and film my parkruns now and again. 

There was a few mishaps with the glasses and I didn't manage to record he first 3km of the run but the  last 2km or at least most of it was and I was impressed with the quality and ease of use once I had it going. I also took some footage of my after run, where I had a chat and rest with my friend Steve before I went off to catch up with the rest of Team Pattison. Plus we had a new face running with us this week, it was Becky, my sister Jodie's best friend. It was her first parkrun and she did a brilliant sub 40 time as her first PB, a good bench mark to start off with. Brilliant job Becky. When we got home I looked through what I had managed to capture and made this short video as a test video for what could be a regular thing.

Now at this time last year I was setting myself a mileage target to hit based on what I would usually run around Shepley. I had set myself a target of 1000km but I didn't even get close I think I'd be lucky to have got 800km and if it wasn't for parkrun I don't think I would have gone past 500km. So this year I won't set a distance target instead I have come up with a different target. Whilst organising the New Years Day double parkrun I posted on Facebook that 2014 would be the year of the parkrun tourist. For those who don't know what that is, it's a person who travels to other parkruns other than the Home parkrun they have designated online. So my target for this year will be to do at least 5 more different parkruns, not including Huddersfield, Barnsley and Dewbury as I have already done these. There are at least 10 that are within 1 hrs drive of us so fairly easy to do. So I have no excuses on completing this target this year, plus I have at least 3 10k runs, a 10k obstacle run, a 10 mile obstacle run and a half marathon to train for and all before august. So mileage shouldn't be a problem this year, the test is breaking the usual parkrunday routine to go to a different parkrun. 

Here are a few photos from the Christmas period that I have liked from the Huddersfield parkrun Facebook page and a few of my own when I remembered to get the camera out. 

Plus I hope you enjoy the video even if it is a bit rubbish, I hope you all have a good 2014 and hit all your targets you set yourself.

Keep running everyone

 

Go Team Pattison