Michael and Flo were back at Cardiff Junior parkrun today. Flo was the Run Director, and Michael had been assigned the role of time keeper. After the parkrun, Flo and Michael helped sort the tokens back into order, over a cup of tea (for Flo).

A copy of the run report is below:

We were very lucky with the weather today. It only began raining as I was walking to my friend's house (all 50 minutes of the journey). 🌧☂️

Congratulations to Pippa and Sally on their half marathon wristbands, to Darcey and Emrys on their marathon wristbands, and Osian on their ultra marathon wristband. 🥳👏🥳👏🥳👏

A quick fact sheet on the wristbands. A junior is eligible to collect their half marathon wristband after 11 runs, their marathon after 21, and their ultra after 50. Then the next milestones are 100 runs and 250 runs.😮For each one, the junior will collect the wristband on the run after (so 12th junior parkrun for half marathon wristband, 22nd junior parkrun for marathon etc).

Congratulations also to the 20 juniors who got a new PB (personal best) time today, and to the 7 juniors who visited for the first time. 🤩🤩🤩

Cardiff junior parkrun event #413 was made possible today by the 30 volunteers. Thank you all so much. 👍❤️👍❤️

Ian is the run director next week, please let him know if you can volunteer during the week.

On a crisp Sunday monring, goodgymers got together for another Junior Parkrun - a wonderful brisk task.

We cheered and clapped, encouragement at every 100m, a brilliant way to start the day and end the weekend.

Today we saw 194 young participants and there were 36 volunteers.

I (Flo) was out at Cardiff Junior parkrun as Run Director today. My duties included course check, safety briefing, warm up and volunteer coordination. I'm also responsible for the social media post, which I've copied below for additional context.

'So glad the rain started after parkrun o'clock today!

There are many people to thank and congratulate.

First, thank you to the 29 volunteers today. All 29 volunteers made the event possible. They were able to make sure the course was adequately covered with marshalls, ensured timekeeping was accurate, and that all the juniors got scanned quickly. Some were volunteering for the first time, whereas others were on their 901st volunteer credit. All are welcome and appreciated in the Cardiff Junior family.

Congratulations to L 1 junior who achieved their marathon wristband today (not half marathon, like I incorrectly said first 😬), and to 3 juniors who all achieved half marathon wristbands. Apologies to 1 of the half marathon juniors, who's surname I initially said wrong first too 😬. This run director may not have had enough coffee ☕️, and is sorry for any confusion and upset they may have caused the juniors who were collecting their milestone wristbands.

There were 153 participants today, 36 who got a PB (personal best time) and 18 who were visiting for the first time'

Michael and Flo were out and about at Cardiff Junior parkrun again. Flo was Run Director for the 5th time, and had assigned Michael as start and finish set up, along with the unofficial role of 'Emotional Support Goodgymer'.

Luckily, there were no incidents or issues. 136 juniors took part, with 14 first-timers, 31 new PB times, one tourist from Andover, and five milestone wristband achievements.

Cardiff Junior parkrun celebrated their 400th event today! There were 185 finishers, 17 of whom ran for the first time here. 48 juniors achieved a new personal best time, and 10 juniors achieved milestone wristband achievements.

I headed down to Cardiff Junior parkrun for the 9AM start for volunteers. A local school was doing a 'takeover event', and there was an incredible amount of volunteers arriving on time (this is rare, and I include myself as one of those frequently tardy volunteers!).

I was marshalling the coveted 'Cowbell' spot, with three other volunteers. Cowbell is noisy and demanding, with runners potentially coming from three different sides in two different directions at any point. Cowbell needs to be set up with a strategic cone arrangement.

Only there was one problem.

The 'Cowbell' cone bag was missing. It was later to be found behind a box in a volunteers garage, but right now the four of us were debating what to do.

One volunteer was able to borrow five cones from another part of the course, though this was still woefully inadequate. In the end, I was a 'human cone' blocking off the one part of the path runners don't need to go on. I did a very good job as a human cone. You could say I was outstanding in my field...

After all the runners had finished, a parent came over seeking help with trying to find their two juniors barcodes. Between myself and another volunteer, we were able to find the junior barcodes through a popular but unofficial parkrun mobile app. We then had to go diving through the token bucket to find the two juniors finishing tokens.

Even if we hadn't gone to these great lengths to record these two results, Cardiff Junior parkrun would still have ended up with a new course record breaking amount of finishers. 262!

The previous course record was in the low 220s. 262 was unexpected, but appreciated.