I gather one of the incidents last week was because a youngster sprinted off and ended up finishing about 20s in front of the Dad (in sub-22). When the RD caught up with them and mentioned the within arms length rule the Dad rather aggressively kicked off.
It is a tricky one, my mother in law was volunteering at junior parkrun and my son, who wasn’t running, went and stood next to her with a dog. The RD had a go at her as no dogs are permitted at all at the junior events. It was also unfortunately the week a parkrun regional ambassador had turned up.
LO and I pretty much do that every parkrun. The caveat is that we only ever visit two and they both know us well. If I was asked to stop her doing I would (because that’s a shed load easier than trying to catch up with her . )
That sounds like the RD is overstepping the mark there. So the dog wasn’t running in their event but just in the park? They couldn’t possibly stop you from doing that.
While it sounds heavy handed, I’m sure they have the rule for a reason and whatever the rights and wrongs you shouldn’t have a go at the volunteers.
Working through seems to be my default these days, mostly because I can’t start as fast as everyone else. Leader was long gone before I got towards the front pack, and he just kept extending, but the group fell apart on the climb so it was solo 2nd lap.
One funny story is that I’m on the volunteer email list. We had a new volunteer co-ordinator once and I put down that LO and I would do TailWalker (we have a requirement for two).
They asked how old LO was and I replied ‘9’, they said she could not do TailWalker with me, even if they had another Tail Walker because of concerns that LO wouldn’t make around the course and I’d be forced to leave.
Mrs FP ran a 26.30, LO sprinted ahead for a 26.05 and I walked/hobbled around in 45.30. Tried a little jog but the impact was quite painful on the skin of my knee, also the bruising is coming out more now.
I think that was my 97th. Hope I can put in a good show for my 100th.
My dad’s one of the furious ones. Tbh, I haven’t followed this so I didn’t really know what he was getting upset about. He’s 80 and he got back into running post-lockdown and he’s loved duking it out with the other 75+ runners to get the top spot at Bushy or Richmond Park. The stats really motivated him and meant something. He’s continued doing a 5k but is boycotting PR. I thought it was a bit ott but I kind of get his point now.
Rocked up to test my knee. Didn’t look at my watch until the end, just went easy on feel.
Knee held up but we’ll see later. It did look a lot less angry this morning and I covered it with two big plasters, so not to scare the children
I did the course check for ours and then ran it. Started at a steady pace and picked it up on the way back, was surprised to see I was only about 12 seconds off my PB for it and it was still a bit soft in places.
Not sure what’s going on, felt terrible last night on my run yet that wasn’t bad despite going a bit harder
Our local one was cancelled today as Race For Life were using the park, so had a rare UK tour, taking in Quakers Walk in Devizes.
Was feeling pretty rubbish so wasn’t planning on pushing it (reflected by choice of footwear) but in the end did a pretty hard effort for 20:20. It was 3.x laps on on a mixture of hard trails, muddy in places and tarmac. Course was pretty congested with an out and back section with lots of near misses with the oncoming overtakers.
At the end I was so frazzled I immediately hung the finisher token on the board without scanning it. Fortunately a very friendly scammer approached me to point it out.
One chap was even more out of it than me, completely missed 4 people cheering and calling out his name before the finish and proceeds to run straight past it and started a 4th lap, before someone ran after him.
Quite a few people dressed up in Star Wars stuff/carrying light sabres including one bloke dressed as Princess Leia in the Jabba the Hut scene. He was lucky it was a relatively warm morning! They also had the music blasting out.
Had to dash back as at midday I was chaperoning 3 kids round the Pretty Mudder, which was 5k. Fortunately the obstacles weren’t for the adults.
. )
next stop is America 
