Octogenarian park runners unite at the home of parkrun.....Bushey Park 
On Saturday 7 July, with the temperature nudging 30C, 38 parkrunners aged 80 and over gathered at the birthplace of parkrun, Bushy Park in London. One of the participants, Richard Pitcairn-Knowles, tells us more:
Several regular local parkrunners were joined by many oldies from as far afield as Scotland, Wales, the West Country, Essex and Brighton. Despite the heat and dust, the first two, Michael Coupe (SW Vets) and Gerald Billis (Wootton RR) both beat the previous M80 record (Ray Dare 28:02 set in 2009). Joe Cleverley was first M85 and the remarkable Madge Bradwell, with 415 Bushy Parkruns completed, was first W85. The oldest finisher was Hugh Dinwoodie from Scotland running only his third parkrun.
It is never too late to start running. In the words of the late Charles Eugster, ‘Age is Just a Number’!
Full results are available on the parkrun, Bushy Park results page 7th July 2018;
taking the story further
Run reports are an excellent way to make the Saturday morning experience last longer. Run Directors or one of the 'core team' will often publish a report on the day's happenings. It could be 'milestones' achieved by runners or volunteers, 'tourists' and where they have come from, or even just extreme weather and funny incidents as I have copied and pasted below. It's especially interesting from the photo of Lesley showing '1st timers' where to go and she stars in yet another photo at the end when the wind gust brought a large branch down just a few feet from her! Whilst pointing out to Ken where it had eminated from, Ken snapped the picture and 'mystery' dog snapped the mince-pies, intended for chilled volunteers!
Here is just a sample run report and is from Ken that also has a focus on age categories :
Wendover Woods 13: Chills, thrills and crafty canines!
Lucky for some
Outside it sounded very wild, when my alarm clock bleeped. I checked the weather app on my phone, "Wendover Woods: warning, strong gusts, 25% of sleet, temp 0C, feels like -4C". That didn't sound good! (It was also wrong - it felt much colder than -4C!!).
But on parkrunday it's better to be out than in, and 74 runners and 14 volunteers agreed - more normal numbers after the special, mass "tourist" visit last week. (We got mentions on the two main parkrun podcasts "Free, Weekly, Timed" and "With Me Now" about last week. Worth listening to).
It may have been our 13th run and it may have been a bit chilly and breezy, but it stayed dry and conditions underfoot were good, so it was actually quite a pleasant albeit, chilly morning, especially after a hot tea/coffee/chocolate in the cafe!
This week we had a fair few visitors too, as Wendover Woods steadily builds a reputation as "one of those parkruns you really should do". 33 visitors travelling from as far as York joined us - great to see them all. We were also joined by two first time parkrunners, Rob GOODALL and Antony CAMPBELL, welcome to the parkrun family and we hope to see you again soon.
We were also blessed with a wonderful team of volunteers at this busy time of the year and say a special thank you to Jane MARTIN, Lesley & Malcolm CARD, Stuart EKINS, Ken DOUGLAS, Paul HEMBURY, Kristina BIRD (and her mother who stepped in at the very last minute!), Alison & Chris BILL, John APPLEBY, Steve & Toby CLIFFE, Richard LONG, Louis & Tracey BAILEY........35 first time visitors to Wendover Woods parkrun were urged to look out for the course markers as we wouldn't have marshals on every corner.
It's not a race we keep saying!
As always it was great to see the way that so many people lingered on the finish line to welcome the crossing of those behind. I love that about parkrun, especially on bitterly cold mornings. The only real competition in parkrun is between each runner/walker and their own times.
On the other hand it's always interesting to see how quickly some can cover the 5km, especially when parkrun's "age categories" are taken into account - a fantastic leveller. (You can find out more about it here parkrun Age Grading)
This week our first finisher was Kenny LOWIES with a time of 19:32, setting a PB and equaling the Wendover record for the male 50-54 group; he was followed by Mark Kencroft (who now co-holds the same age category record) and then first-timer William Shippin (who completed his 346th parkrun!). For the ladies Lynda HEMBURY was first finisher with a time of 23:37; second finisher was first time visitor Catriona SCOTT; third female finisher was Olivia WATERSTONE (who also set a new PB - see below). Well done to them all.
When you apply parkrun's Age Category "levelling" the first finisher table looks like this:
- Lynda HEMBURY - 83.35 %
- Kenny LOWIES - 76.71 %
- Mark KENCROFT - 75.53 %
Turning our attention away from pace and looking at persistence and consistency, this week we had two significant milestones to celebrate. Both Jeremy Green and Dan Millin reached their 50th parkruns and earn the right to wear the coveted red T-shirt. Congratulations to bot
Personal Bests
12 participants recorded Personal Best times today - and it's worth saying something about those.
- Mark TINKLER - improved over his last time by almost 2 and a half minutes on only his 2nd run
- Mark WOOD - improved by 53 seconds
- Jeanette O'ROURKE - 4 runs done with 3PBs in a row, this week by 10 seconds
- Andrew O'FARRELL - 2nd PB shaving 27 secs off the last time
- Amy WARBRICK - joint record holder for attendance (11 runs) with 6 PBs, this time a 20 second improvement
- Olivia WATERSTONE - a canny 2 second improvement!
- Emmaline SPARKES - first PB at first attempt and a huge 2:20 improvement
- Liam KENCROFT - first PB at first attempt, 37 secs
- Jeremy GREEN - 50 runs in total, 8 at Wendover, 3 have been PBs - improved by a 4 second margin
- Gareth DAVIES - first PB at Wendover by 47 seconds
- Kenny LOWIES - went from 21:14 two months ago to 19:32 and became a joint age cat record holder (although if you take age cat into account Kenny - who must be a bit older - just edged Mark out.....sorry mark!!
) - Elizabeth FOSS - another PB at the first attempt, by a very neat 10 seconds.
- Congratulations to Dan Mullin (centre) who completed his 50th parkrun, flanked by Shaun and Jenny who have taken on significant personal weight loss challenges helped by parkrun. Inspiring stories from all three.
And finally..
A gust, a snap, a CRASH - and a large branch plummeted heavily from a tree behind us close to the Finish Line. This caused a bit of consternation and while we were all distracted a crafty dog seized the opportunity to attempt a heist on my box of mince pies! I have to confess a certain admiration for the little rascal! I didn't realise at the time, but the critical moment was caught "on film":
Caught in the act
For many it was time to start the (sometimes long) trek home, others had the lure of the Aylesbury Santa Dash and some headed to the warmth of the cafe. There it was really interesting to listen to the stories of what draws each person to parkrun - as many different reasons as people themselves. I heard truly inspiring accounts of staggering weight loss, with more planned; of exciting plans to complete the "unofficial parkrun challenges" (like running a parkrun starting with each letter of the alphabet); of using parkruns around the country as gatherings for family members and old friends. It didn't take long for any thoughts of the cold to disappear! Thank you to everyone who made this morning's Wendover Woods parkrun a good one. KEN
PS - If you'd like to join the volunteer team at any event over Christmas and New Year drop us a message at wendoverwoodshelpers@parkrun.com to find out
Recent Wendover Woods parkrun Posts
- Wendover Woods 13: Chills, thrills and crafty canines!
- Event 12: It’s a Wendover Woods record attendance!!!!
- Wendover Woods parkrun: Event number 11
- Wendover Woods parkrun Event No: 10 24th November 2018
- 17th November 2018…
Wow! What a day! I think that one of the best ways to start a new year is to take part in parkrun, as a runner, walker or volunteer and so many of you did just that
This was only our 16th event but our attendance record was blown to bits! 460 runners took part and I think it will be a very long time before we beat that number.
We agreed with the lovely people at Tring parkrun that they would start at 9am and we would start at 10:30am so that some keen parkrunners could do the 'double'. It turned out that nearly 200 parkrunners ran Tring and then ran Wendover Woods. As a result the queue of cars trying to get into the Woods stretched back almost to the road!
Not only were there so many doing the double, many of them also ran from Tring to Wendover and then back again after finishing our parkrun. Impressive effort!
Somehow we got everyone briefed and down to the start and once we got everyone going the fun really started!
- Nick IMPEY was first finisher is a new course record of 16:58! Not only that, he also did a 'double' with Rushmere where he was also first finisher in 16:59! Fantastic performance.
- We had 279 first timers at WW including 11 who ran their first ever parkrun.
- Martin SLEEMAN and Helen PAGE ran their 100th parkruns
- Robert SWALLOW, Luke RICKETT, Nigel WIGGINS, Steve ALLEN and Nicky TABRAM ran their 50th parkruns
Congratulations to them all and to everyone else who took part.
The team of volunteers did a fantastic job and had to deal with queues at the finish funnel, queues for barcode scanning and running out of parkrun tokens. Then the parkrunners had to queue again to pay their parking fee to exit the woods:
All good fun and a memorable experience!
The event was made possible by 14 volunteers:
Jane MARTIN • Dan WIZARD • Lesley CARD • Stuart EKINS • Jeremy GREEN • Hilary LEE • Malcolm CARD • Markus KINCH • Alison BILL • Chris BILL • Carole LEYBOURNE • Lisa JACKSON • Louis BAILEY • Nigel GILDING
Today's full results & complete event history can be found on the Wendover Woods parkrun Results Page.
The female record is held by Alice WRIGHT who recorded a time of 20:05 on 20th October 2018 (event number 6).
The male record is held by Nick IMPEY who recorded a time of 16:58 on 1st January 2019 (event number 16).
The Age Grade course record is held by Lynda HEMBURY who recorded 88.27% (22:18) on 15th September 2018 (event number 1).
Wendover Woods parkrun started on 15th September 2018. Since then 1,458 participants have completed 2,286 parkruns covering a total distance of 11,430 km, including 255 new Personal Bests. A total of 91 individuals have volunteered 258 times.
Event number 34:
Posted on May 15, 2019 by wendoverwoodsoffice. This was Lesley's turn to RD and all went very well as can be seen from her report below!
Nearly into the middle of May and the weather still feels more like mid February but 95 braved the cool weather to complete the 34th Wendover Woods parkrun today, 5 of whom were first timers to parkrun. Welcome Chris, Steven, Emma, Victoria and Wayne to the parkrun family and we hope to see you again soon. The Woods were very busy today with two other running events taking place, an Ultra and Half Marathon. However all our runners managed to ignore the conflicting signage to finish the course, 34 of whom recorded new personal bests. Some were actually going straight off to take part in the half marathon, so the best of luck to them. Check out the short YOUTUBE video created by Simon, one of our tourist today, from Leamington parkrun. He certainly seemed to enjoy his visit. We also had tourists from Northala Fields parkrun which apparently isn’t north and hasn’t any fields. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu-QnSuUpB0&feature=share
Thanks to all the volunteers who made today’s event possible. The roster for next week is looking quite empty so please drop us an email if you think you can help out. This week 95 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 21 were first timers and 34 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 19 different clubs took part. The event was made possible by 17 volunteers: Dan WIZARD • Kate JOHNSON • Gareth DAVIES • Lesley CARD • Stuart EKINS • Louise BROOKES • Tom BROOKES • Harry BROOKES • Malcolm CARD • Kristina BIRD • Lucie REPOVA • Ben CAMERON • Matthew WEST • Don BAILEY • Louis BAILEY • Nigel GILDING • James PEDRICK Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Wendover Woods parkrun Results Page. The female record is held by Alice WRIGHT who recorded a time of 19:41 on 23rd February 2019 (event number 23). The male record is held by Ben LIVESEY who recorded a time of 16:45 on 20th April 2019 (event number 31). The Age Grade course record is held by Lynda HEMBURY who recorded 88.27% (22:18) on 15th September 2018 (event number 1). Wendover Woods parkrun started on 15th September 2018. Since then 2,096 participants have completed 4,203 parkruns covering a total distance of 21,015 km, including 769 new Personal Bests. A total of 132 individuals have volunteered 539 time
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