More particularly, my birthdays at parkrun, as opposed to parkrun birthdays! Saturday was the 3rd time my birthday has fallen on a Saturday since I first became a parkrunner in 2009. In 2013, on my 59th birthday, I ran my 100th parkrun. That may have been a little bit contrived! 6 years later, I ran my 265th parkrun on my 65th birthday. That was extremely contrived! And on Saturday, with no contrivance required, I ran my 396th parkrun on my 70th birthday.
As my friends know, the prospect of becoming 70 years old had been bugging me for months. I'd never been able to envisage it, and the leap from my 60s to 70s felt somehow much greater than that from my 50s to 60s. Having now survived over 3 days of being a septuagenarian, perhaps it's not going to be as grim as I'd feared after all!
I really should have known better. The montage below includes 2 ladies who really are inspirational. On the left, Anne Dockery ~ a current Great Britain triathlete who only stops laughing when she needs to take a breath, and in the yellow top, Jan Moody, who was 76 before she ever ran a parkrun and has now completed 96 of them! Some of us had been speaking of Jan the previous week, because we'd not seen her at Ashton Court since November. When I saw Jan pushing her bike up the hill into Ashton Court on Saturday morning it more than made my day, and I told her so! Anne's birthday was also on Saturday, while Jan's was on the previous day.
Anne Dockery ~ Jan Moody ~ Rich Kenington ~ James Rodliff (photographer Sarah Jones)
On the right is someone else who made my birthday particularly special. James Rodliff was Run Director at Windmill Hill junior parkrun on Sunday, where I was marshalling. After the 2 laps, almost every one of the 45 junior parkrunners, and the parents running with the smaller ones, had wished me "Happy Birthday"!! Twice!! What a lovely thing to think of! I started out smiling, was very quickly laughing, and then a lump appeared in my throat from nowhere and my contact lenses very nearly leaked! Thank you James, that was a lovely gesture!
And thanks to all my friends at Ashton Court parkrun as well, for making this big birthday a memorable and cherished one. I was given cards, hugs, big warm smiles and even complete strangers wished me a Happy Birthday! I rarely stray from Ashton Court parkrun these days, and that's largely down to all of you, who make it such a warm and welcoming place to be! Thank you!
Not many words from now on: mostly photos and graphics to tell the story of Ashton Court parkrun number 594
don't our volunteers look fab in their pink tops! Cecilia Cand and Daniel David looked after us on the first bend, and on the right is the reception committee at the finish line! (photographer Sarah Jones)
As you know, none of our parkruns could happen without our amazing volunteers. We're always on the lookout for more! If you'd like to help make a parkrun happen, take a look at our volunteer roster, and you can email us from that page, either to ask us a question, or to put yourself forward as a volunteer. Volunteering is great fun, very fulfilling, and I'm sure you'd enjoy it! Why not give it a go?
I suppose birthdays are life's milestones aren't they. As parkrunners we have plenty of opportunities to enjoy more milestones, and Saturday was no exception. Congratulations to all the parkrunners in the next 3 montages, in particular Emma Withers, the 4th Ashton Court parkrunner (and 1st female) to arrive at 500 parkruns. When we spoke on Tuesday the new blue t-shirt was on the way!
Philip Murphy ~ Emma Withers ~ Clive Attwood ~ Michael Reynolds (photographers Geoff Keogh, Mike Walters, Sarah Jones)
Photographer Sarah didn't get a clear shot of Philip, but we managed to find this photo of him about to finish his 2nd parkrun, which was our 88th, in January 2013. Compare it with the inset ~ (from a group photo taken by Dan Lambourne on Saturday) ~ and it's clear that Philip's hardly changed at all in the intervening 11 years!
This was also too good an opportunity to miss posting this shot of Emma finishing her 1st parkrun, which was our 5th, in May 2011!
Stephen Lane ~ Alice Thompson ~ Kerry O'Shea ~ Tracy Lazenby (photographers Sarah Jones and Rich Kenington)
Alice was another parkrunner on Saturday that Sarah was unable to get a clear shot of. So here she is in January last year, enjoying her 25th parkrun at Ashton Court. It was good to welcome Kerry back to parkrun, as she'd been parked on 24 parkruns since August last year. Kerry finished her 24th parkrun in 31:24, and on Saturday was just 1 second slower!
Paul Channing ~ Andrea Goude, Helen Rogers, Nicola Stephens ~ Lynn Chadeesingh (photographer Sarah Jones)
Every week we see some parkrunners who just can't get from start to finish quickly enough! On Saturday 44 of our finishers beat their best and achieved personal bests! Here's a quartet of them ..
Jamie Bassett ~ Catherine Barham ~ Alison Ely ~ Richard Barclay (photographer Sarah Jones)
18 of Saturday's finishers were taking part in their first ever parkrun, and I hope they enjoyed the experience and went home looking forward to their next one. 123 finishers are at home at other parkruns and were visiting Ashton Court ~ 61 for the first time ever, 62 of them making repeat visits. Please do come back and see us again soon! 5 of the 123 visitors are shown below. I hope I've identified everyone correctly ~ apricot tops with your home parkrun's name on always help of course, and milestone t-shirts are useful as well!
William Lloyd ~ Anne-Marie Garrett ~ Catherine Usher ~ Rebekah Merrett ~ Gerald Brooks (photographer Sarah Jones)
Our results had a very untidy look to them this weekend, with 3 unknown finishers in the 1st 4! It's probably sufficient to say that I'll keep my thoughts on that subject to myself! Here are montages of the first 7 known finishers, I think!
Caroline McAleese ~ Lynsey Blake ~ Alex Nann ~ Alice Doggrell ~ Sophie Johnson ~ Ella Venn ~ Heather Bourne (photographer Sarah Jones)
Edward Foster ~ Nick Hassey ~ Dowan Kwon ~ Jez Blake ~ Marcus Kropacsy ~ James Sutton ~ William Stewart (photographer Sarah Jones)
And that's about your lot from parkrun number 594. Below is a self-indulgent look at my 3 Ashton Court parkrun birthdays, and a little further down the page you'll find some more numbers. Most of the photos used to illustrate this report were taken by volunteer Sarah Jones. You can find all Sarah's photos from Saturday in two places online. First, in an album on our Google Photos space, and second, on our Flickr feed. Thank you Sarah!
Report from Rich Kenington, finisher number 289 and Ashton Court parkrunner number 1,817
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Saturday’s full results are here.
See you next week!