Laura and I enjoyed helping out at Great Salterns Parkrun, giving out finish tokens and barcode scanning.

It's a lovely setting - with the open green space, the trees and the new colourful wildflower meadow.

It was a humid, hot and rainy parkrun this morning. Fewer people than last week, definitely due to the conditions... Some of the puddles even made a return to the course. Fortunately no thunder and lightning.

94 Finish tokens were handed out to some very sweaty runners!

on a wet, windy and yuck April Saturday morning 44 runners and walkers hit the Great Salterns parkrun course.

the team of volunteers did a tremendous job with 1 scanner, 1 timekeeper, 1 token giver and 2 marshals being the entire cohort

It was a lovely frosty 🥶 but sunny ☀️ morning at Great Salterns parkrun. 3 GoodGymers volunteered to support one of our local but smaller events. Dave time kept⏱️, Yvonne handed out finish tokens and Jane barcode scanned, then we sorted tokens after. There were quite a few first timers today, maybe 20 out of a field of 65 participants. We did discuss with another parkrunner if event 171 was a significant challenge number such as a Fibonacci or prime number. It must have been too early or we needed more coffee ☕️ or weetabix, as we thought it might be a prime number, but after checking it is actually divisible by 3, 9, 19 and 57! Oh well, at least we managed to time and record the 65 participants correctly! 😀

Tokens and teetering were the game at Great Salterns parkrun this morning! The turn of the weather to the cold end of the scale left a lot of ice patches around trying to upend the runners! 🧊

With Dave handing them out and Sinéad collecting and sorting them, it didn't take long for all 71 tokens to be happily back on their string 🧵

Jen helped clear up at the end so that everyone could get off swiftly to the warmer environments awaiting them 🌡

Goodness me, the first task of 2025 couldn't have got off to a more chaotic start, with both our original plans to volunteer at Southsea parkrun, and our back-up event at Havant being scuppered due to high winds and squawly rain.

I think Jason, the RD, was very pleased to see some last minute volunteers rock up, especially as all the local cancellations meant Great Salterns set a new attendance record, with 239 runners and walkers today.

Judy's Morecambe and Wise moves when passing the marshals brought a lot of joy to the morning, especially when she was closely followed by a group of runners dressed as ABBA!

You could probably all tell that marshalling isn't my strong point, with erratic dancing to keep warm and attempting some weight-lifting with the exceptionally large marshal cone. I did hit 10,000 steps shortly after parkrun, so those dance moves counted for something! Dave's marshal point was certainly a more chilled out place to be!

Superb effort by everyone this morning, that weather was absolutely ridiculous!