Excellent funnel management!

Back to where it all began for the second parkrun write-up!

10/10/26 : St Albans 

Back in early 2024, I'd just completed Couch to 5k and was able to finish the distance without walking too often or being in too much danger of collapsing at the end, but I didn't really know what I was going to do next or even if I was going to keep running. One suggestion that came up frequently from the other members of the household was to try parkrun - I wasn't entirely sure it would be quite my thing, but eventually big old brave me screwed up the courage to attend one just to see what it was like. What's the worst that could happen? (believe me, I came up with quite a few scenarios in answer to this).

And so, on May 11 2024, I trotted down to Verulamium Park in the centre of the city to attend my first ever event - and I've got absolutely no idea why I attended this one because it's not actually the closest to our house. It could be that the closest one has a somewhat hilly reputation but, as we'll come on to later, that's somewhat unfair - the other possibility that occurs to me is that I'd be less likely to bump into anyone I knew here, just in case any of those worst-case scenarios happened.

In an ideal world, I'd obviously write up my first ever parkrun, but the only thing I remember about it is that it was sunny, I HATED the walk back up the hill on the way home and I obviously had a decent enough time because I've been back a further 115 times since. I've not been back to this location very often though - but this morning they were holding their 700th event, so me (for my ninth time) & the volunteer (freshly out of her sling - a non-runner this week, but she did run it on New Years Day after a heavy NYE and very little sleep, which was quite something to observe) drove down there (to avoid walking back up the hill) on a chilly morning to take part in their James Bond (700 backwards) themed celebrations.

And quite fancy it was too with various organisers dolled up in tuxedos and sparkly outfits (the runners less so, but it's hard to think of James Bond appropriate running gear) and a brass band providing some music - yes, that mostly involved them playing the Bond theme, but there were a few other tracks as well (none of which I recognised). And it's a very well organised event, (because it has to be with often 500-ish people in attendance) with the starter briefing being miked up alongside a BSL interpreter, announcing a couple of 400 run milestones and visitors from various far flung places which I'm afraid we don't remember - Connecticut (or somewhere else beginning with C) and Sweden, is the best we can do!

After which we all headed over to the start line - and quite the start line it is too because it's just as wide as you need it to be. There are a good couple of hundred metres available for the group to come together and thin out before we have to do a U-turn to head down to the old golf course (which I didn't know even existed before I did this!). We then do a couple of laps of that which feature a hill which is steeper than it looks from the bottom, followed by temporary respite before another hill appears round the corner (thankfully shorter, but it has a sneakily steep short section in the middle). We'd been warned in the briefing that the footing in this section wasn't great but I didn't have any problems and the path was always wide enough to prevent any issues. And once that was done, we simply retraced our initial steps on a nicely flat section to the finish line. 

And I did OK! My time was 26:59, a new personal best at this event (considerably speedier than the 30:28 I did in my first event - but that was quicker than I remembered doing) which meant I finished 197th (10th in my age category) with an age-graded score of 58.43%. It wasn't a great week for parkrun challenges though, with me only making progress on the date bingo (and I'm going to have to keep running for another four years before I stop making progress on that).

So that was the running, how was the volunteering this week? It was another new role for her with her turning her hand to funnel manager - which involved an awful lot of standing around because St Albans parkrunners know what they're doing so they don't need much managing. Apart from one rude runner who tried to push in right in front of her! (but it's always possible that I OK'd that with the guy in front of me before I did it). She did get some amusement though - because it was a special event, there was a radio reporter though who decided he had to interview the winner (who did it in 17:32). All of which is commendable, but he tried to do so immediately after the guy finished and would not accept that maybe the guy was a bit tired - "Mate, I need this because I've got to get back to the studio"

As I previously said, I haven't run this event loads but I run in the park four or five times a week so I'm a bit blasé about it all, but I tried to approach everything with a unfamiliar eye this week - and the simple fact of the matter is that this is a beautiful course with loads of trees, a lake (which the course used to originally involve) and views of the Abbey (which is a particularly fine building). I'm not a fan of the hills, with elevation varying over 23 metres across the course (which is actually more than our local course with its hilly reputation) but it features two reasonably steep 19 meter climbs which are not exactly fun. I also have to say that the state of the ground in winter can be very slippery underfoot - when I did it on New Years Day, there were sections that I could barely walk on, which made for interesting progress. 

That wasn't a problem today though and it was almost perfect running conditions with clear blue skies, gorgeous views and a well organised event. So a huge thank you is due to this event for introducing me to parkrun and all the volunteers (2,200 of them apparently) that have enabled this event to run for the last fourteen years - here's to the next fourteen.