My parkrun journey to 250th

 parkrun 250^th: 16^th December 2023:

When our South African friend, Johan Duvenhage, recently completed his 250^th parkrun and shared his parkrun journey in a blog, I was inspired to write my parkrun journey. Just as Johan’s story was an encouragement to me, I hope that my story might be an encouragement to others. And while this is my story with my accomplishments, it is also a shared story—all those with whom I have interacted over the period of my parkrun involvement are part of my story and I owe you all so much. And I would love to read your parkrun stories if you would care to share them so that we can be encouraged by what you have done.

You might say that my parkrun journey began on 19^th March 2008. But how can that be, considering that parkrun didn’t commence in Australia until 2^nd April 2011 and in Devonport, where we live, until 30^th May 2015? The answer is that that was the day I took up running in response to my brother-in-law, Bruce, running the Six Foot Marathon. When I read what he had achieved, I was inspired to take up running with the hope of being able to replicate what he had done. Well, I haven’t been able to do that, but I have kept up my running.

Being a minister in the Presbyterian Church meant that I was not going to enter races on a Sunday, so I was looking around for something that I could compete in on a Saturday. Bruce did put me onto an event in the Launceston area which I competed in twice, but there was nothing else available. When we were in Perth in 2015 for six months, while I was looking after a little church following my retirement, I searched for a fun run that might be available. All I could find was a thing called parkrun, the nearest one being at Canning River—which was about 12k or 17 minutes’ drive away. My immediate reaction was that that was much too far to travel to go to a 5k event, so I didn’t bother pursuing it any further. The following year, when we were back in Devonport, Val heard one of her friends talking about parkrun, so she researched parkrun and then suggested that I go down the following Saturday and participate. I registered and nervously turned up at Devonport’s event on 16^th April 2016 to participate in my first event, which I completed in 27:06. 

At a later event at Risdon Brook where I was Tailwalker and Val was Photographer

The following week, because we were in Hobart, I participated in my first tourist event at Hobart parkrun, in a time of 27:59. This event is now known as Risdon Brook parkrun. The next five weeks were back at Devonport and, on my eighth week at parkrun I volunteered at Devonport in the, for me, daunting role of Timekeeper. I was so nervous in case I messed the results up with the stopwatch—but I didn’t have to worry because of the encouragement and help I received. Not long after that, it was another trip to Hobart and then a fortnight later I was at The Ponds in NSW. Everywhere I had to be for family reasons I took the opportunity to get to a parkrun when I could. It was around this time when I was totally surprised to receive the “parkrunner of the Month” award at Devonport. I was just so overwhelmed that I didn’t know what to say.

I think that it was on my second run at Devonport that Val asked me if I would like her to come down and take some photos of me. But it wasn’t just me she took photos of, for she also took some of her friends! A couple of weeks later, the RD talked to her about registering with parkrun and for the remainder of that year she filled the role of Photographer—taking much appreciated photos of volunteers, walkers, joggers, and runners. She took so many photos each week—often over 2,000—that she would often be still at the computer at 6:00 pm each Saturday night editing them before they were uploaded.

Without knowing anything about the then suggestion of participants volunteering once in every ten events I volunteered nine times in my first year—six times as Timekeeper, twice as Barcode Scanner and once handing out Finish Tokens. I don’t know why I was volunteering as much as I did but it was just something that I wanted to do because of the need, so Devonport parkrun could take place.

Breakfast celebrating my 100th

In 2017 we spent eight weeks with the people of Cobram parkrun as I was looking after three little churches on the NSW side of the border. It was a wonderful time, especially with the event team for they made us feel that we belonged and were a real part of that parkrun community. One of the highlights of those weeks was being invited to a team meal. To be included in this way meant so much to us.

You might even see one of the local koalas at Cobram

Throughout our travels across parts of our country, we’ve been amazed at the way in which different parkrun communities have warmly welcomed us, accepting us as part of their local parkrun family and warmly inviting us back anytime we could make it. People have gone out of their way to host us; to look after us; to include us in non-parkrun activities. We have made so many wonderful friends as a result of parkrun and our being able to visit other events.

Vollies at the launch of Collie River Trail parkrun

New friends at the launch of Collie River Trail parkrun

Tailwalkers at one of the trials for Kadina Trail parkrun

Caroline and Val at Pioneer parkrun

Finding genuine Treasure at Quinns Rocks parkrun

Albert, Melbourne with Helen

Breakfast after Eastern Gardens parkrun

Obviously, my 250^th is one of the highlights in terms of achievements in my parkrun journey, made all the better because Val was RD at Bells Parade that day (I specifically arranged my activities so that that would be the case as I couldn’t think of a better person to have as RD for that occasion). What was so moving about my 250^th was that two young men in their teens chose to run with me for the entire 5k. They are so much faster than I could ever be, but they chose to do it with me, offering encouragement along the way when I found the pace getting to me. Thank you, Ben and Daniel. What great young men you are—a credit to your parents. They helped me to achieve my fastest time this year since 14^th January. I also shared the celebration with Carol for her 50^th and Jane for her 100^th. We each wore a cape though I ran with just a sash (I took the cape off for running so it didn’t hinder me, but I put it back on afterwards). We also had Cheryl, one of our regular vollies, reach her 25^th milestone though we weren’t aware of it at the time. A special gingerbread parkrun course was made for the event, along with other goodies to celebrate. Our celebrations were, however, tinged with some sadness as Kim, one of our outstanding ED’s, was leaving us for work interstate. Our loss is surely Southern Highlands Botanic Gardens parkrun’s gain.

Being accompanied by Ben and Daniel

With cape and sash

Gingerbread parkrun course

With Carol and Jane

Thank you, Kim, for being a fantastic ED

Along my journey, one of the other major highlights has been playing the role of the Gingerbread Man! I’m so grateful that the 2022 Ugly Christmas Shirt has a Gingerbread Man on it. In this role, I am able to take my cool down to encourage the young ones, with parent’s permission, to get to the finish line. I tell them, “Run, run as fast as you can, You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread man”. I hope that they enjoy the challenge as much as I do—especially when they beat me to the finish line (which I don’t cross a second time). I also find it a joy to run home with others—whether they be people I know or don’t really know well. One of my favourite photos is from Bellerive parkrun, where, after asking the boy’s mother if it was okay, I was able to run her son home while holding his hand. Another special memory from Bellerive is walking with Kylee and her daughter Veronika.

The Gingerbread Man runs again

I am, to my wife’s frustration, one who likes stats—and I have quite a few spreadsheets to keep track of things. So, my 250 parkruns have taken place at 82 locations, but I also have 146 volunteer credits from 36 locations—giving me 84 different locations in all. I set my PB of 23:12 at Devonport on 2^nd June 2018 (when I doggedly tried to stay with a couple of our ladies—I saw myself as an aging greyhound chasing bunnies to get to that PB) and my best age grade is 76.84%. Twice I have finished in first position—Railton and Yeldulknie Weir Trail—but I’m still after that elusive 7^th position. Several times I’ve just missed getting it. The closest I’ve come is at Geeveston where I was in 7^th position until the runner in front of me strained his hamstring and pulled out. I did consider slowing down to let the next runner overtake me but decided against it. At 75, I doubt I’ll ever have the chance for another first finish so I judge things by both whether I can get to the 2k mark before the first runner gets to me on the way back and the age grade results. The most parkruns I’ve done in a year is 42 in 2018 and the most volunteer credits in a year is 33 in 2022. My volunteering includes 17 times as RD in 3 locations. I am grateful to Deb Hicks at Port Sorell for mentoring me in this role and Lisa Ireland for allowing me to gain further experience at Railton. I have a P Index of 6, a V Index of 8 and a Wilson Index of 17. Being in Tasmania makes it harder and expensive to chase numbers. We still haven’t been able to get to NT and Queensland (though we will be in Toowoomba for PALM24 and we also hope to do Zillmere to complete our alphabet challenge while we are there), and I haven’t been able to volunteer in ACT.

Some mornings I wonder why I’m doing it when we have to get up early and, sometimes when I’m pushing myself hard in a run, I also wonder why I’m doing it. But I keep coming back because parkrun is such a great place to be—whether I’m volunteering, walking, jogging, or running So that’s my parkrun story. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, especially when there’s an opportunity to encourage others.

PALM23 in Perth

With my doppelganger Johan at South Beach Recreation Reserve for PALM23

PALM23 in Perth

With our Franklin family at Geeveston parkrun

I've decided to add a few more photos of some of the wonderful friends we have made.

With Leonie, Brendan and Jodie at breakfast after Kate Reed parkrun

Breakfast following Our Park parkrun

With Raoul at Jarrahdale Heritage parkrun

With Abdul at Mundy Regional parkrun (my favourite course)

The Adventurers at North Wollongong parkrun

The Troll of Wagi Bridge parkrun meets Phil and Gemma Gore at Shipwreck parkrun

Volunteers at Carinne Glades parkrun

Lunch with Luke and Sam after Carinne Glades parkrun

With Bruce and Debby (whom we first met at George Town parkrun) at Carinne Glades parkrun when we joined the Pirate Club

Bruny Island Ultra Marathon 2023

 This is truly a stunning course and, following my solo run here in 2018, I have always wanted to come back and do it again. However, circumstances have prevented me from running here again until this year. So, it was great to be able to return this year. Unfortunately, though, a fall damaged my right quad, and, with travelling on the mainland for an extended period, I wasn’t able to get the necessary kilometres under my belt for a solo run. Instead, I became the captain of a two-man relay team with my youngest son.

I initially planned that we would run 10k legs each and do the last 4k together. Thus, I looked up my schedule from 2018 and put a table together with what I had planned for 2018 and what times I actually did back then—I did this for each kilometre of the legs I was going to run and the total time each leg took me to complete. As I was now running as a team, I decided to keep the same planned times from back then for this year’s event. The rationale behind this was that, even though I am now 75 years old I would only be running half the distance. I printed my planned schedule out and carried it with me during the event so I could compare 2018 with this year.

All of that changed, however, when my son, who hasn’t run much more than 15k in training, said that he didn’t want to run 14k at the end and would prefer to run that distance as his first leg. I quickly changed things around a bit to reflect the different stages of our run. Because he has two young boys, I opted the run the first 10k leg so he wouldn’t disturb them too early in the morning. As it was, our alarm was set for 3:15 am so I could commence at 5:00 am at Dennes Point.

Our support crew was my wonderful wife, Val. I decided that I wouldn’t need her to stop each 2k as I would have stretches sitting in the car when I could rehydrate and eat to sustain my energy.

For the first leg I opted to wear an old pair of Soloman Speedcross 4 Trail shoes as, apart from the starting few hundred metres, it was a gravel road. As support vehicles drove passed, they left clouds of dust that could be tasted with each breath. The morning was overcast when I got away at 5:10 am, for which I was grateful. My aim was to sort of powerwalk the first 2k because it was all uphill. I accomplished this in 5 seconds faster than I did in 2018. From then on, I forged ahead, not worrying too much about conserving myself for the latter stages of the run. As a result, I ended up completing that leg in around 5 minutes faster than 2018 (in saying this, I’m not taking into account the difference between watch pace and our change overs because they didn’t happen exactly on an even kilometre). Having an old man’s bladder meant that I did have to have a stop at around 3.5k and I also paused to chat with a few people and check on one young lady who dropped back. That was just to ensure that she was okay. For me this is a race, but I always remember how John Landy stopped in the middle of an important 1956-mile race to help Ron Clarke to his feet after he had fallen. Keeping an eye out for others and trying to help or encourage them is always more important than setting a good time or getting a good finish position (but at my age top finish positions are out of the question). I did ask the person with the stop/slow sign near the CWA Hall if I was expected to run more slowly because the slow side of the sign was facing me. Aren’t I cheeky?

In my second leg from 24-34k where I wore my Brooks Adrenaline 21 shoes, I had ample opportunity to encourage others whether they were faster or slower than I was. A couple of “highlights” of this leg was when I caught up with one young lady and spoke to her. She must have had her mind on other things and hadn’t heard me coming and I gave her such a fright that she squealed loudly, and I jumped aside. I slowed down to talk with her for a while before heading off at my pace. A bit later, I caught up with a parkrun friend just before 9:00 am and commented that, as it was almost time for parkrun to start, we had better have a 5k parkrun sprint. There were so many people driving by or sitting in cars waiting for their runners who yelled out words of encouragement as I continued. It’s one thing I really treasure about Bruny—the amount of encouragement that people shout to you as you pass them. Sometimes, what they say just overwhelms me. By now I was running very fast (at least for me) and completed my leg in something like 16 minutes faster than 5 years ago. I did begin to feel the strain on my injured quad and the fact that I wasn’t carrying any fluids. I was able to tell Val that I wanted some at the next vehicle support point.

My third leg, 44-54k, was again quite fast, sometimes up to 3 minutes per kilometre faster than last time. When one young lady said that I was on fire, I did tell her that that was how my legs were feeling. It was beginning to hurt even more but, for once, I didn’t let that slow me down. It surprised me that I could, at least for today, roughly keep up the pace I was running at without fading badly. Again, there was so much encouragement being offered by people as I went by, or they drove by.

It was then my son’s turn to take over, but he was showing signs of struggling with cramps and I didn’t know if he would be able to continue. I made the decision to join him at the 58k mark to run the baton home. Our times to the finish dropped off dramatically as he courageously continued on, not wanting to go against his promise to get to the line with me.

I’m enthusiastically looking forward to next year’s event already—whether as a solo run or part of someone’s team who could use a runner. I shall just wait and see how things pan out over the coming months with the events in which I would like to participate.