Remember, remember the fifth of November”¦ parkrunners, marshalls and cake!
It was a nippy one on Saturday and my advice for future volunteers is BRING GLOVES AND A HAT!
We had a great turn out on Saturday, with more than 20 marshalls around the course and more than 90 runners (including 20 first-timers) at the start line.
Two of our runners were celebrating their birthdays as well, so big congrats and “Happy Birthday” to first-timer Heather Drudge and parkrun regular Kev Fry, and many thanks for the post-run cakes!
Top three from The IW Road Runners
The IW Road Runners provided our top three men! Smashing his PB in style – for the second week running (no pun intended!) – was Pete Wilmott (VM40-44) with his time of 18:52. We were also pleased to welcome back to parkrun our local running champ (and milkman extraordinaire!) Graham Tuck (VM60-64), who was second over the line with 19:27.
Graham also achieved the highest age graded performance score of 82.43%, and remains top of the overall table with his score of 85.21% from 14th May. In close third place was previous winner Al Rowe (VM45-49) with 19:34, and although I wouldn’t normally go on to mention fourth place, I simply had to congratulate Simon Lewis (last week’s headless man!) on his fantastic run and magnificent PB of 19:41. I know Simon was grateful to Al for unwittingly “pacing” him, and it was nice running all round.
Well done to the Lewis family daughters – Mabel and Elsie – who helped with marshalling and were brilliant supporters to all the runners, not just their impressive Dad!
Ryde Harriers Ladies
The Ryde Harriers provided our first couple of ladies home. Keeping up her winning momentum was Mary Norman (VW45-49) with her fourth win out of seven appearances with yet another PB time of 20:56!
Mary’s performance also earned her the highest female age graded score of 79.14%, which puts her in 7th place on the overall performance table. Previous parkrun winner Karen Lewis (VW45-49) was the second lady across the line with 22:03, whilst young Eden Crumplin got back into the top 3 with her run of 22:49.
Love Running Parkrun Award
Congratulations also to Eden for receiving several accolades at last night’s IW Athletics Club 2011 awards ceremony, including the 2011 “Love Running Parkrun Award” – a brand new award created by our local running shop to celebrate IWAC juniors who participate and support the community parkrun.
23 finishers recorded a new PB this week, including youngsters Sam Hutchinson (who was also 6th overall!) and Jacob Keyte (who was taking part in his 10th parkrun so far). A BIG well done to you all, and the results table gives further details of all the performances and the various performance tables.
Eden’s performance increases her leading points total to 2,381, and Elsie Lewis remains second with 1,801.
Meanwhile there is upset in the rest of the Lewis family as young Mabel – who got her 100 points for volunteering this week – has ousted her Mum out of third place with her 1,731 points! That awesome clapping and supporting had to be worth something!
Men’s table
There is no change in the positions on the men’s points table, as Mike Morris is still ahead with 2,102, with Jay Tuck second with 1,984 and Kev Fry third with 1,776. These guys have – I believed – already had the maximum 300 points each for volunteering this year, and are now reliant on points earned from running, so it could get interesting now, especially with young Jacob Lewis hovering close behind in fourth place, and running so well every week!
The female course record holder is still Reading Road Runner – Jackie Perrin – with her 19:19 achieved on 22nd October, whilst Eastleigh runner – John Collier – still holds the men’s course record of 16:30 from his run on 1st October.
Over the course of the past six months the Isle of Wight parkrun has had 378 different runners, including representatives from 41 different athletics clubs, running the equivalent of 1,487 parkruns and covering a total distance of 7,435 km.
This is just a bit greater than the distance covered by ultra-runners Charlie Engle, Ray Zahab and Kevin Lin between November 2006 and February 2007, when this intrepid (and possibly slightly mad?) trio became the first people to run across the entire Sahara desert – crossing six different countries in 111 days!
If you would prefer to stick to 5km at a time, join us at Medina next week – 8.45am for a 9am start – for another heart-warming, health-promoting and fitness-inspiring parkrun!
Thanks to volunteers
Many thanks to all the hardy souls who helped at our 27th IW parkrun; including Justine, Nicola and Wallace on timing and positions, Cheryl and Paul at the scanning table, all the marshalls, Joe Norman doing photography and our indomitable Ray Scovell directing the event.
Ray is putting together the volunteer roster for the next four weeks, so please let him know in good time if you think you might be able to help at a forthcoming event.
To gain “volunteer points” you need to tell Ray you would like to be put on the volunteer list for a future event. The first three events you officially volunteer at will then gain you an automatic 100 points on the parkrun points table.
