28.09.24 – Event 505 The Macmillan coffee morning

Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s Run Report, it seems an age since I last wrote one, been doing a spot of parkrun tourism whilst holidaying in Scotland. Travelling up we stopped in Harrogate to visit Fountain Abbey which has been voted one of the prettiest parkruns in England. Situated in a secluded valley, its described as one of the most historic and beautiful places in Europe, a 2 lap undulating course run entirely on firm footpaths. Loved this parkrun as you get the chance to see other runners on the opposite side of the valley. A lovely café with friendly volunteers and participants. On our way back we decided on Fort William, a one lap trail through Leanachan Forest, a lovely downhill for about a mile and a half and then a gentle uphill all the way back to the finish. A very pretty run through the forest although tough. They average less than a 100 participant every week but were a great bunch of friendly volunteers. Altogether 2 very nice parkruns and ones I would definitely recommend if you are ever up in those parts of the Country

So Saturday we were back on familiar territory for Catton’s 505^th event, ED Kelly was fresh from her holiday to take up RDing duties for the morning, and behind the scenes Kelly had been busy organizing this weeks Macmillan bake sale, not just organizing but also baking cakes along with Kyra ready for Saturday. Kelly loves nothing more than shout outs on her Run briefing and this week it was a full one! Saturday was a ‘Fresh’ one weather wise, we had a lot of rain leading up to Saturday’s event but surprisingly the course was very dry and firm (no need for my trail shoes) I did have a bit of a double take moment as Kelly started her run briefing, in front of the RD it looked rather empty, but then looking over to the grassed area everyone had positioned themselves to bask in the Sun. this week we welcomed 327 participants, looking back on events it seems we are regularly getting over 300 every week (weather permitting) we had 14 very first timers to parkrun and 24 tourists visiting Catton for the very first time. And the perfect running conditions resulted in an impressive 45 PB’s

here’s Kelly just before her run briefing, adjusting her head set. Now i am pretty certain Royston in the background might be having a pre-run piece of cake to help fuel him!

First Timers and Tourists, this week we had visitor’s from Cambridge, Wisbech and Little Gressingham.

We had a few milestones to mention in the Run briefing this week so lets get the ball rolling….First up on 25 parkruns we have Abigail Lambert, next up with a couple of unofficial milestones we have Tracey Harrold with 150 parkruns and Peter Marron (7 Vols) with 200 parkruns. We also celebrated a milestone with regular participant Derek Jarvis volunteering for the 100^th time, this week as our Tailwalker. Lee Youngs was a marshal this week, volunteering for the 24^th time. That’s not a milestone I hear you cry! Well on Sunday he volunteered at Waterloo Junior parkrun to take his tally up to 25 and an official milestone, so a little bit of recognition in the run report. Well done everyone and thanks for all the volunteering and we had a special birthday mention for Elaine Elbow who was celebrating her 50^th birthday, hope you had a great day celebrating.

 Peter Marron giving us the thumbs up before his 200th parkrun, and Katie looking very impressed

Derek Jarvis on Tailwalking duties to complete his 100th volunteering stint, thanks Derek. Also good to see Barry Harvey back with us

Elaine flying into her 50’s with this great finish photo, Happy birthday Elaine

Now at Catton we all love CAKE! This week in helping celebrate parkruns 20^th birthday Macmillan organized a Coffee morning takeover at all parkruns, encouraging everyone to wear green. Macmillan are a charity partner of parkrun and Saturday was an opportunity to increase awareness of Macmillan services and raise money through a bake sale. Kelly, Kyra and Marcus were particularly busy all day Thursday baking cakes, cookies, cupcakes and flapjacks and along with cake and sweet donations from Lynn, Wendy (mum in law), Kelly-Anne and Lindsay we were able to raise a fantastic £168.22 (and 1 euro!) from cash donations and £126.00 from on-line donations. We also held a little competition guessing how many cups on a sheet of paper, Gemma Blyth guessed the closest with 163, the actual number was 166. So a tub of Hero’s will be winging it’s way to Gemma’s this week!

Kyra and Marcus were in charge of serving you up the yummy post run cakes. Thanks to both of them for volunteering to help out

As you were running round or volunteering you might have spotted some runners and walkers in red Royal Mail T-shirts, Kelly-Anne works for Royal Mail and every year they raise money for a nominated business charity. This year they chose The British Heart Foundation and Kelly-Anne organized with some of her works colleagues to come over to Catton parkrun to either run or walk the course and raise money for this worthwhile charity.

Kelly-Anne and her Royal Mail gang looking glorious in red. Most turned up on time, although a couple were late. But they were impressed with how Catton delivered a First Class parkrun as always.

This week will be our 11^th birthday, our birthday coincides with parkrun UK’s. This year is parkrun’s 20^th birthday, 20 years since 13 runners and 5 volunteers got together in Bushy park to arrange a timed event. Which has now turned into a world wide event, where 100’s of thousands of people turn up every Saturday morning to either run, walk or volunteer. Can you honestly think of a better way to spend your time on a Saturday morning? To celebrate this year we will temporarily be pausing the letter themed fancy dress and asking everyone to wear milestone t-shirts, see if you can dig out one of those early adidas or Tribe sport editions? So either a 10(junior), 25, 50, 100, 250 or if you are lucky enough (Stephen Mosely) 500 T Milestone T-shirts, (running or volunteer). For those of you who don’t own a Milestone T-shirt, there is always a milestone colored T-shirt….White, Purple, Red, Black, Green or Blue. And yes there might be some cake!

Obviously our birthday parkrun cannot happen without our wonderful and priceless volunteers. This week we are still looking for the following roles to be filled…

1 Timekeeper

1 Funnel manager

3-4 Marshals

So please either e-mail in or comment on this Facebook page.  The following week (12^th October) we could do with a Number checker, funnel manager, 2 x Finish token hander outers and 7-8 marshals.

This weeks Hi-Viz hero’s, as usual we could not put an event on without you all, many thanks as always

Regular Timekeepers Elizabeth and Paul, basking in the sunshine this week 

Andrew will be your RD this week, so start hunting out those T-shirts, enjoy the rest of your week and hopefully we will see as many of you on Saturday morning making the meadow a sea of milestone colours.

Thank you

Brett