Misty Sunday morning and last one for 2024. This also means last Pitshanger Junior parkrun for the year. The countdown started for the juniors to run 3-2-1 Go!!!!From the mist, we had 43 runners appearing around the park for the season finale. These figures were outnumbered by one of the Goddgymers : Yes Harvey celebrated in Alan Shearer style with one arm up, little finger out as he has reached a massive 750 good deeds!!!

Today Kash was on barcode scanning, Harvey on finish token support, while Mohamed and Steph Ducat on the course marshalling and cheering the juniors.

At the end the junior runners, parents and volunteers were welcomed by biscuits and sweets : how the finish a year in style!!!

Happy New Year and see you in 2025 for more Junior parkruns!!!

In the run up to Christmas, junior parkrun attendances tend to drop off. Despite the beautiful morning, there were only around 10 runners ready for the warm up at Pitshanger Juniors today.

Most of the remaining runners arrived just in time, with a few more who were a bit after time too. When the runners started, the tailwalkers, including Steph, didn't go anywhere. Run Director, Amanda, asked why they were chilling at the start and the responded by pointing to the last children, who were still preparing to set off.

The tailwalkers eventually got going, then 2 runners showed up even later. Two Thames Valley Harriers arrived 7 minutes after the start in neon socks and did a great job of catching the rest of the field, shooting past Harvey, Kash and Mohamed, who were marshaling the course.

The award for having the right priorities in life went to a little boy who was more interested in arithmetic and counting the cones leading up to the funnel than in crossing the line. He was being chased down by a girl behind and only just kept his place after lots of encouragement from volunteers and family to get moving, including Sevan who was timekeeping at the finish line. How many cones were there? Lots! Ah-Ah-Ah!

This morning's Pitshanger Junior parkrun had a glut of volunteers. In fact the run director, Karen, was heard to say:

"We have so many volunteers today that we have a page 2!"

As there were so many helpers, the 3 GoodGymers all ended up at the same marshal post. Each took different routes to get there. One was signed up as a marshal on the roster, one hadn't signed up and the other one was running late and arrived after the runners had set off. They grouped together to give the children and parents and extra loud cheer at the first/last marshal point on the course.

86 children in all finished the course and there were almost as many adults running the 2km too. Impressively, one child counted 25 high fives on their way round from 8 official marshal points.

After a quick refuel, Kash and Sevan headed onto the day's next task woodchipping a new path at Pear Tree Park.

GoodGym Ealing's regular visit to Pitshanger Junior parkrun coincided with a recent increase in the number of runners. Usually, they see a peak right before the Ealing Half Marathon at the end of September and, more importantly for the Junior parkrunners, the Ealing Mini Mile. Last week, there were still 97 runners and this week, only 1 shy of the ton at 99 participants

Ninety-nine runners on a grey morning with an storm due to hit at any moment was pretty impressive. The volunteers were made of tough stuff too, with an abundance of marshals around the course. Steph and Kash were 2 of those marshals, while Sevan had nabbed Kash's usual role as a barcode scanner.

Nothing too unusual happened, apart from Kash spotting a fleet fox taking part, or at least a fox tail rushing past her. Whether they were a fox or not, they needed to have a parkrun barcode if they wanted their time to be recorded by Sevan. Talking of recording times, Sevan delayed submitting them while token sorting, hoping that runner number 100 would appear. He then set off to get a coffee without uploading his results 🤦. Cue a bit of panic and running back to try and find the run director.

An Ad-Hoc session on a very wet Sunday morning as 3 Goodgymers were going to a community mission at the Pear Tree Park later in the morning near by. Kash and Sevan ran to the Junior Parkrun while Steph Ducat took the bus as completed the Shine Marathon Walk during the night and only slept 1 hour. Horrible weather conditions overnight and early hours of the morning, what would the turnout be this morning?!Over 50 junior runners turned up and braved the wet, muddy and "conker"ed course. Kash was on scanning, Sevan marshalling and trying to hide under a tree from the rain while Steph was on funnel duties. Steph and Kash ensure the cones were in place at the finish line once the runners set off. All the runners made it safely back to the finish line, but it was a bit of choco chaos as one of the juniors completed her 100th junior parkrun today and brought a box of "celebrations" to share....what is the priority ? Chocolate or the bar code scanning ? What a tough decision to make!They all got their scanning done in the end and also got their treat.

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 🙄