Different types of ambition bookended this morning's Pitshanger Junior parkrun. Before the runners arrived, Run Director David observed

It's 2 weeks before the [Ealing Half Marathon] Mini Mile
It's when parent's start saying "you've got to win this!" - David

This attitude was definitely on show as a bumper 127 runners crossed the finish line with the first child coming in at under 7 minutes. At least the first 20 were totally out of puff, having left it all out there on the course.

After briefly joining the warm up, Sevan went to record the times of the finishers and Kash was one of 3 barcode scanners that were kept really busy by the large number of children. Harvey, meanwhile, found a place in the sun where he could marshal from.

Harvey and the other marshals did wonderfully, encouraging children to have fun all over the course. One child decided that their ambition was to have a 2km walk this morning, no matter how much they were encouraged to run the course. In fact the only time they broke into a run was between the funnel and the barcode scanners after they finished in a little over 28 minutes 🙄

Sunny but cool sunday morning and 2 goodgymers made their way to Pitshanger Junior Parkrun. Jacquie was on barcode(1st time) and Steph Ducat was marshal at point 1. We had some speedy juniors today and 58 crossed the line : well done. At one stage, Steph could hear some crying/gossipping: was that the noise of the birds 🐦 flying or chirping around? No it wasn't and today we had some smaller juniors with tears and decided not to finish but they will be back...well done for doing part of the race.

Steph had arrived early for this morning's Pitshanger Junior parkrun and done a quick recce of the course. He found the same thing as the official course checker, that there was a crater in the middle of the course.

Recent downpours combined with Greener Ealing trucks had carved out a couple of big grooves smack in the centre of the path. It wasn't quite large enough to lose a child in. Injuries were a worry though, which is why Steph, Kash, Jacquie and Sevan were deployed as marshals around the course to keep the runners safe and serve out a few high fives to power the kids on.

The GoodGymers and other volunteers were able to shepherd 74 runners around the course without injury. The only mishap that they saw was a runner discovering a hole to trip over while running on the grass off-path 🩼

Join us again next month at Pitshanger Junior parkrun to see if the crater has been filled in!

GoodGym Ealing were at Pitshanger Junior parkrun this morning to find the air filled with numbers, in every sight and every sound, claims the song. Were they a secret code the be cracked or were they a result of complete chance? Who knows. If you have any theories, leave a comment.

Before the runners set off, everyone learned that one volunteer was coming up for their 99th birthday this week and it was their 25th time volunteering with parkrun. There was also a call out for one runner who was taking part in their 200th Junior parkrun, which is really impressive. Not many Sunday lie ins for them!

The course had changed today too. The start had moved 20 metres forward and the finished 20 metres in the other direction, with the aim of stopping runners from knee capping themselves on a park bench. The bench used to be in front of the start line and eager children running off the path at the start had to squeeze past it. A problem that was now removed.

Once the kids actually got going, Harvey and Steph were marshalling around the course, motivating the runners. Sevan had the pressure of being the only timekeeper using the official app torecord each child's finish and Kash was scanning the finishers barcodes.

At the finish, a strong field was on show. There were 89 finishers in total with the lead runner finishing in 7:03, or 423 seconds, which is very speedy indeed.

We'll be back at Pitshanger Junior parkrun again, helping all around the course, in July. Sign up here

Sevan arrived at this morning at Pitshanger Junior parkrun expecting to be a marshal and Kash, having forgotten to sign up didn't know what role would be in store for her. It turned out that they were both assigned to be funnel managers, a role that neither of them had done before. Apparently last week the funnel was a problem

"It was chaos" - marshal

"Last time the funnel manager set it up then went to run with her daughter" - frequent run director

Oh well, said Kash and Sevan. They'd roll with it. Kash was stationed at the entrance to the funnel to siphon adults away and Sevan was at the finish line to make sure that everyone stayed in finish order and took the left turn to pick up a finish token.

"You're doing a much better job than last week" - frequent run director

"You mean I'm doing better than no one? Just kidding" - Sevan

Kash had the harder job, with people milling around the funnel entrance and some adults and children being confused by being asked to split up. Sevan on the other hand only had to gently cajole to get children running all the way to the finish line and not stop dead on the line.

In total, 96 runners were shepherded through the funnel. The same number as last time, but with 3 funnel managers in action this week, everything worked like a well oiled machine.

A strong team of 6 GoodGymers came today to support a big group of Pitshanger junior parkrunners and got a shout out from the run director Amanda. The word "GoodGym" caused a nice applause as opposed to silence after the mention of the lost property.

"Quality merchandise!" - David

There were no takers for the two lost hoodies. Maybe the runners prefer to take home other things? Read on!

Harvey was spared the pressure of the timekeeping after running the London Marathon in reverse overnight. He joined the GoodGym cohort of marshals, alongside Afsar, Anuj, Madiha and Sevan.

Kash stayed at the start and helped set up just a little bit wonky funnel, then assumed the barcode scanning role alongside another volunteer, Christina. The two scanners had to handle a whopping 90 barcodes - probably a record number of attendees since the pandemic! They tried to get ahead of time and started sorting the tokens from the very beginning of the scanning process. The brilliant idea fired back at them when a couple of tokens were blown away by a sudden gust of wind. The scanners retrieved the barcodes quickly but at the end they discovered that number three was still missing. It was nowhere to be found in the grass. Maybe someone took it home?