parkrun, lap two

Went along to one of our potential destinations for parkrun this morning to give the dog and child a walk. Noticable far more muggles walking dogs there than there ever would have been before, clear that the kid has zero interest in maintaining forward momentum, loos are apparently no longer accessible to the public (might just have been the person on the door didn't know and wanted me to put some change in their donations box), coffee shop still does awesome coffee and cakes but were slower than a very slow thing on a go slow day.

So re evaluated our options and will pick a different course for next week and hope that it doesn't get overrun by Welsh people hopping over the bridge and just stopping at the closest event.

We also need to relearn how to get the family out of the front door early enough on a Saturday morning. Seems awfully early leaving today, but would have been at the parkrun destination and doing warm-ups by that time a year and a half ago.

Great to be running parkrun again this morning. Just the same as before, the very minor tweaks you'd not notice unless really looking for them. Despite predictions of local events being overrun by hordes of Welsh invaders that never materialised and most seemed to be down about 50% on pre pandemic numbers, even with a last minute cancellation on the morning by one of the local events due to the weather.

The threat of rain was probably enough to keep numbers down in area, but not seen anything much across England to suggest anywhere was getting anything other than normal expected crowds at most.

Just things like extending the finish funnel and extra scanners at the event I did.

Some will have also had minor changes to start finish point, and another of my local events changed to using their simpler 3 lap course that doesn't have any pinch points that their strange 2.5 lapper does.

The lining up at the start at the event I went to has always been a little odd at the front, in that it used to be me with the buggy and a couple of over optimistic people with their toes (front wheel) on the line and then the guys who would actually fill the first few places all stand around having a natter a couple of meters behind at the start. The regulars knew full well why I was at the front with the buggy and that I'd be out of their way within seconds and was the best place for me to be.

This week though, without the buggy, and still the super speedy guys who would be about to get the top spots were still hung around a few meters back having a chat. It's kind of unique to that event the way they line up in the first few rows and always surprises me when I'm there.

Anyway, further back it would normally all be pretty packed together, but I checked with Mrs robinph about the crowding back in the pack and everyone was apparently fairly spread out in the start. When I was lapping people on my last lap there was noticeably less people overtaking each other at the same time as the leaders were going through, so presumably more people had actually started at better positioning than normal. How long that will last for though is anyone's guess. :)

From the Elliot Line stats post there were 7 junior events in Ireland today.

"In Ireland there were 7 junior events, 289 parkrunners, (of which 73 were recording their first parkrun), and 112 volunteers,"

NI junior events restarted with around 24 hours notice, and they have restarted Wales and Scotland with only a couple of weeks after knowing dates from government about when they could start.

England was an oddity compared to most other territories because of size of parkrun, but since that restart they are less concerned about risks of crowding or needing high numbers of events returning at the same time.

Once they have permission I'd expect them to move quickly.

Cardiff which would get 900 plus regularly only had 400 last week and another event in Cardiff was cancelled after one of the core team tested positive after their trial event the week before... Still no overcrowding at the original Cardiff event though.

That should only be taken as a very tentative possibility for that event restarting as it's not consistent when HQ populate the columns with the no event this week text for future weeks.

Once you see volunteer names listed for a particular week you can take that as virtual confirmation of the restart.

Absolutely, but don't make plans until you see names on the roster. There was a couple of local events to me which had empty lists until the week of the restart, then they switched to saying no event. But it wasn't consistent across the country when the tables were updated.