On the weekend of 6th and 7th October a load of people did some park runs, Naomi Carey did her first marathon, a few others may have run some races that I don’t know about, so it looks like the Magic Results Fairy has let me down for one final time.
On Saturday it was the 20th anniversary of Parkrun and, presumably in the hope of avoiding 25,000 pdeople turning up at Bushey Park again, Parkrun made it known that the way to celebrate the anniversary was by going to your local parkrun. So it was slightly surprising to see the Crowthers at Preston, 4 people making the trip to Rickmansworth, Kim and Roly making the trip to Panshanger, Vince and Lewis trekking to Hove and Susie Ivin making a journey to Hastings.
Of those who turned out to be capable of following simple instructions, Michael Linden performed well at Gadebridge, leading 9 Harriers home, a few Harriers stretched the “local” definition slightly at Rickmansworth and Cassiobury Park while Jane Percival (more about her shortly) claims that Leavesden IS her local Parkrun.
On Sunday Naomi Carey was running her first marathon at Chester. Unfortunately she’s been suffering from an ankle issue recently but she still managed to complete the course in an excellent 4:09:20. She had her close friends, Simon and Natalie Wheeler and Claire and Phil Bowers in support and one assumes that at the time of writing this (around 5:30 on Sunday, Naomi has had a few beers and somebody else is driving home.
Choose the best caption: Jane wanted “unusual running style”, I wanted “Nothing to see here”
As the club probably knows, I have handed over the reins for the weekly report to Jane P, and she will be doing everything from now on. I’m sure you will all join me in wishing her well as she brings her unique new ways of writing to the job. Just remember:
- The Magic Results Fairy IS NOT REAL. If you don’t tell Jane about a race, she cannot possibly know.
- Similarly, Jane does not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of everybody’s PBs. If you run a PB and you’d like it celebrated, let her know.
- Jane won’t be at all the races. If you see or hear something funny or interesting (extra points if it is in any way scandalous, you know who you are, Kitty!) then let her know.
- If you forget to put Gade Valley Harriers as your club name, or you join Steve Newing’s hirsuite fake club, you will not show up in the filters.
- If Jane asks to follow you on Strava, let her. She needs to use it as a key research tool.
I didn’t ACTUALLY give Jane my computer, but we wanted to pretend it was a “real” handover
It’s been a blast, I hope you will all be as generous to Jane as you were with me.