What A Day to Visit Wormwood Scrubs Parkrun!
Newcomer Darren Horton enjoys a 'monumental' Saturday with a record turnout
What a day to take in my first visit to Wormwood Scrubs Parkrun! I often work in London, and occasionally stay for the weekend. My home run is in East Yorkshire, at Hull where I am part of the report writing team, so I asked Ben if I could write yours this week from a tourist’s perspective. I firstly want to say that I really enjoyed visiting, not only was the run enjoyable but all regulars and visitors were so friendly and welcoming. I loved chatting to fellow parkrunners both at the start and finish – if parkrun could be replicated in modern life I’m sure there would be less social isolation.
This week’s parkrun was a monumental one – Wormwood Scrubs broke their attendance record! 186 parkrunners turned up to run, jog or walk the 5km over grassy terrain; sometimes smooth, sometimes gnarly, always easy to follow. The event was attended by many runners from Thames Valley Harriers who were celebrating an Open Day event (hence the fantastic superhero costumes). It brought a smile to my face when taking in views and enjoying birdsong when my eyes glanced over the fluorescent green figure, deftly moving over the autumnal scrubland, the lesser spotted Incredible Hulk.
Of the record-breaking 186 parkrunners, we had 55 first timers at Wormwood Scrubs and 15 taking part in their first ever parkrun event. With everyone welcome, congratulations to those of you who have nailed your 1st parkrun and I hope you have a fantastic journey wherever you parkrun. Lots of unknown runners so if this was a taster…next time buy in and print that barcode, you won’t regret starting.
Tourists & Finishers
Parkrun tourism has become quite the phenomenon hasn’t it! As well as the usual arrangement of personal events when visiting an area, looking for the nearest parkrun has also become important to us. I quickly realised that this isn’t just me haha! Having looked at the results I picked out so many runners from nearby London parkruns as well as further afield including Slough, Great Notley in Essex, Norwich, Liverpool, St. Helens, Aberdeen…oh, and Hull (that’ll be me).
Quick mentions go out to one of the longest parkrunners this week, Nuno VIDAL from Colchester who was visiting Wormwood Scrubs for the first time on his 201st parkrun – we swapped parkrun stories on the tube home. Two first timers this week are really clocking up their tourist points; Valerie HELLIAR from Bristol made Scrubs her 51st different parkrun event on her 148th run; Neil CURRANT’s home parkrun is in Luton but made Scrubs his 76th different event this week.
Overseas visitors too of course; John BOYLE from Ennis, Co. Clare in Ireland visited Scrubs for the first time on his 92nd parkrun. Mentions also to Daniel RIENDEAU from Ottawa, Canada & Jennifer DEACON from Brisbane, Australia. On behalf of Wormwood Scrubs Parkrun, a huge welcome to all visitors and hopefully you’ll be back again for another.
What about our first finishers this week I hear you ask. Let’s start with the female finishers and this week in 1st place was Charlotte BUCKLEY in 20:46. This was Charlotte’s 24th parkrun but only her second visit to Scrubs, having last visited in April 2016 when she also finished first! In 2nd place was Chase CERRELL in 22:36 who again was on her second visit to Scrubs. In 3rd place was Alice McKEON in 23:08 on her 16th parkrun; this was Alice’s first visit to Scrubs and she gave herself a best anywhere PB.
For the gents, in 1st place was Sage PEARCE-HIGGINS on his 38th parkrun; Sage finished in 16:39 which was his 24th time as a first finisher and with three PBs in his last five runs who knows what he has in store! Ryan KEANE was in 2nd place in 17:13 on his 52nd parkrun while Gordon LOW finished his 15th parkrun in 3rd place in 18:13; Gordon also attained the best age range graded run this week in 82.25%.
A mention also to this week’s fastest Junior Parkrunner Aidan FERRAND who finished in an impressive 20:17 on his (even more impressive) 109th parkrun. Keep going Aiden and a huge well done to all the top finishers this week!
Personal Bests & Volunteers
There were 22 Personal Bests this week including those already mentioned earlier. A new PB is always impressive, but particularly impressive when the number of runners increases. Perhaps this spurs us on at times, the pleasant weather and lack of rain certainly helped this week. Well done to everyone who secured a new PB and here are just a few quick mentions that I picked out from the results;
- Adrian MAY finished in 24:37 while Nadia WHITAKER finished in 23:50 – they both ran their third consecutive PB in as many weeks.
- John DONOVAN ran a new PB in 27:51 on his 16th parkrun at Scrubs, beating his 2017 personal best.
- Roisin McALISTER finished her 17th parkrun in 32:37. This was her 6th PB of 2019 and has reduced the time of her first run by almost eight minutes.
- Carolyn BUSINGYE was on her 73rd parkrun (67 at Scrubs); she knocked two minutes off her last PB and secured a new one finishing in 36:33.
Wormwood Scrubs Parkrun was supported by 10 volunteers this week. Remember that parkrun cannot happen without volunteers and you don’t need to be part of a core group to take part in the other side of parkrun. I first volunteered as a marshal when I had a dodgy ankle and never wanting to miss out, I asked to help. It was a great decision and also gives regular volunteers a break or a run themselves. Do help when you can (even if only once). This week’s hi-vis heroes who helped make parkrun possible and successful were;
Ben LE ROUGETEL • Candace BOVILL-TAYLOR • Craig GUNN • Darren HORTON • James AKER • James DOE • Joshua SPENDER • Nick MICHAEL • Paul OPPE • Rizwan RAUF
Well that’s it from me this week, I hope I haven’t gone on too long. Once again thanks to Ben and all the volunteer team, it was an absolute pleasure visiting and meeting so many new faces. So until next week when we do this all again, in the words of a ‘perhaps superhero’..…I’ll be back!
Darren Horton
Do you want to know more about the parkrun? They answer your questions here:What is Wormwood Scrubs parkrun?
It is a 5km run - it's you against the clock.
When is it?
Every Saturday at 9:00am.
Where is it?
It's run in Wormwood Scrubs Park, Shepherd's Bush, London. See Course page for more details.
What does it cost to join in?
Nothing - it's free! but please register before your first run. Only ever register with parkrun once. Don't forget to bring a printed copy of your barcode (request a reminder). If you forget it, you won't get a time.
How fast do I have to be?
We all run for our own enjoyment. Please come along and join in whatever your pace!
Wormwood Scrubs parkrun needs you!
It is entirely organised by volunteers - email wormwoodscrubshelpers@parkrun.com to help.
September 16, 2019