There was a bumper turnout at Acton Junior parkrun this morning. With children back at school, there were 74 finishers, around double the summer holiday average. There was a real back to school feel at the warm up too, with an excited buzz and chatter from the participants, making it hard for Joanna, the run director to be heard.

Once the announcements were complete and the runners were led through a brilliant warm up session, they set off up the hill with Steph and Harvey tail walking at the back of the field.

Michelle as a timekeeper joined Kash and Sevan, who were barcode scanning, in the funnel. As well as double the number of participants, there was double trouble around in the finish area too. After the overnight rain, there were a couple of slips and a fall as speedy children slowed down to walking pace. A naughty pair also collected their token, then turned around to walk the wrong way up the funnel!

Thankfully, there weren't any injuries to deal with and everyone went home happy 🙂

Sevan was optimistic when he promoted today's task at Acton Junior parkrun as "a hot August date 😎". Looking out of the window this morning, he had either made the weather match the listing or gotten lucky as it was shaping up to be a beautiful day 🤔

Following the morning's social run, led by Harvey, 4 GoodGymers and 2 Run Ealing runners arrived early enough to help set up the course, hanging Caution Runners signs around the park. Soon others arrived and took up their roles, including a run director visiting from Middlesbrough for the weekend who Joanna knew . On hearing from Joanna that Mike (of parkrunner app fame) is a local GoodGym member, he blurted out

"Michael Clayton, he's my God!" - Ian

While Ian's God wasn't present this morning, there was great representation around the course with Harvey, Kash, Steph and Alan cheering the children round the course as marshals. A special shout out to Belinda too, who took on a marshal role as her first good deed 👏! Around the funnel, Michelle, Joanna and Tom were barcode scanning, while Sevan was a timekeeper alongside Ian, the disciple.

Due to the school holidays, the number of runners was low today at 28. No one was reluctant to be there though and every one of them put in an amazing sprint to the line.

If this sounds like fun, come and join us next month. We can't promise good weather, but if we wish hard enough, who knows...

GoodGymers from Ealing, Hounslow and Hammersmith were at Acton Junior parkrun this morning in numbers, 8 or them, which matched the attendance last time. Participation was down though. The weather was half as good as in June (is it autumn already?!) and there were less than half as many children, with 39 today vs 87 in June.

As usual, GoodGym was helping all over the course with Chikako as the VI Guide and Michelle, Alan, Joanna and Sevan keeping the children safe and motivated in their marshal roles. Around the funnel, Divy was timekeeping, while Kash and Harvey were both attracted to the barcode scanning roles.

Kash and Harvey are both experienced barcode scanners, Kash with Junior parkrun and Harvey more often at adult parkruns. This may explain the difference in their styles with Kash treating the runners as children, having a little trust in them. She took each token from the runners, scanned and carefully placed it in its special container herself. Harvey on the other hand treated the runners as adults, giving them the responsibility to place their tokens in the box at his feet... with mixed results.

While the number of runners was low, there were some good results recorded, with the first girl achieving a PB as she finished in second place overall ⏱️🙌

Come join us next month to motivate the runners. Sign up here

GoodGym were back volunteering at Acton Junior parkrun, which coincided with another beautiful morning. This might've been the reason for the bumper turnout (reader, you can decide yourselves if it was the weather or GoodGym presence).

There were 87 runners in total who completed the course, with the regular volunteers being amazed at how the numbers had increased recently. GoodGymers too had turned out in numbers, with Harvey, Alan and Joanna marshalling, Divy making a late entrance as a barcode scanner, while Sevan took Divy's place as timekeeper and Chikako was today's VI guide.

There were 2 other GoodGymer marshals who stopped a serious crime. There was a cone thief disguised as a Junior parkrunner at today's event. Michelle and Kash foiled their audatious bid to steal cones from the funnel, that would've sent the children behind them straight past the funnel and running off the edge of a cliff like Wile E. Coyote. Well done Michelle and Kash 👏

We'll be back at Acton Junior parkrun next month to cheer the runners and possibly foil more crime.

That's all folks!

Today's Acton Junior parkrun involved a game of chicken between a Greener Ealing truck collecting waste bags in Acton Park and an army of charging children. The scene was set when, after the children had been released at the start, the truck decided to drive onto one of the paths of the course.

When the Greener Ealing truck arrived at the first bin it stopped to one side, then, further along at the second, the driver decided to park diagonally across the path of the children. As the runners approached, the driver and children stared each other down. Who would yield? One of the regular volunteers, Jane, fearing an epic clash ran over to speak to the driver. It's not known what she said, but it was probably something like "those children can be terrifying. Get out of here while you still can!"

The driver took another look at the neon clad kid leading the charge and decided to take Jane's advice. He got off the path as quickly as he could, which meant going cross country onto the grass.

With that out of the way, it was a pretty normal Junior parkrun. Kash, Steph, John, Joanna, Michelle and Sevan were marshalling, with Divya on finish tokens and Chikako taking the role of VI Guide.

Kash, Alan and Sevan discovered that they were all volunteering at Acton Junior parkrun this morning, while Joanna was the Run Director for the day. There were lots of first timers, apparently encouraged by the good weather, which meant that Joanna felt that things were chaotic before the start. There were lots of questions about Junior parkrun and how it all worked.

As Sevan walked up the hill from the start with his timekeeper's stopwatch running, one of the volunteers said:

"You're timekeeping? Good luck with that! There must be around 80 children today"

"This is the first sunny day this year. Every Sunday until now has been windy or rainy or cold" - Marshal

Thankfully today wasn't one of those grim Sundays. Today was glorious... sunny and warm ☀️

A little further up the hill, the lead runner who'd passed Alan's marshal post asked Sevan "Where do I go?". Sevan pointed down the hill towards the next marshal. They must've been one of those newbies.

At the finish too some of the children had to learn about funnel and that they had to run through it, not past it. "Run through here", "no, don't stop, keep going" and "over here!" were heard over and over. In all Kash and the other barcode scanners recorded 56 times, including a few who didn't have barcodes yet and needed some last minute registration action.

It was great to see that all of the children were excited and enthusiastic today, which doesn't always happen. They must be solar powered.

Thank you so much to everyone who came along to cheer today for the amazing runners doing such an iconic achievement.

More importantly we celebrate all of the amazing goodgymmers who undertook the marathon, it is an incredible feat to start one let alone finish one and you should all be so proud of yourselves!

Bit shout-out to Bethan Critchley jumping in at Mile 12 as a supporter helping runners around the course! What a superstar you are!

I've already listed the cheer party for next year. You can sign up here who knows, if you enter the ballot for next year perhaps it'll be you we are cheering on ;)