Soggy Park Run Take Over

It has been a busy couple of weeks for SLGR with our Halloween run on Thursday and a parkrun take over on Saturday, we had been very lucky with the weather for Halloween but boy did we cop it at Park Run.

It was a bright sunny day when we left home, a tad chilly but the forecast gale force winds hadn’t hit yet so I stupidly left the rain jackets indoors. Some of the other team members were better prepared but in the end it made little difference.

The idea of a Park Run take over is to get as many of the team out either running, helping or both so that the regular volunteers get a chance to run it or a day off if they prefer. We had picked this date several weeks earlier not realising that it would fall on the same date as the Rugby World Cup Final and that England would actually make it. So when we heard that we were in the final, we lost a few volunteers and were expecting a small and predominantly female field but it wasn’t too bad, helped partly by a strong Danson Runners turnout and those in our team who didn’t care about men with odd shaped balls or impending hurricanes, we did okay.

Ben Sowden was race director and directed us accordingly to take up our spots. Chris, Mel, Kay and Fleur were on chips Jane and Dave Reid were on scanners both of which were hampered by the rain, it messed with the readings and didn’t register at all for a couple of runners. The rest of us were directing runners around the turning points and shouting keep left a lot as the route runs up and down the same stretch of path a couple of times.

The first half an hour wasn’t too bad, a light drizzle and a bit of a breeze. Then the heavens opened and the wind picked up quite a bit. Umbrellas would have been pointless, shower jackets would have been useful ! I pitied the runners still out there but it obviously made quite a few run faster to get it over with as we had loads of PB’s either for the course or for any 5k so well done everyone.  

The last runners / walkers crossed the line just over the one hour mark and we hastily packed everything up and ran for cover but it was a bit late. Wet shoes, wet feet, especially Keith in his flip flops and well pretty much wet everything else but it didn’t dampen our spirits. It was into the café for hot drinks, a team photo and a debrief before we went home to wring ourselves out.

Well done team.