100 Parkruns!

Hello readers.

Saturday was a special day for me, it was my 100th recorded parkrun!  That is 312 miles, 500.115 kilometre!  I have actually done a few more parkruns than that, but sometimes I had forgotten my barcode (who hasn't done that!) and sometimes I was with the beginners, encouraging them, where I started running with them, then decided to take pictures instead!

But on Saturday I decided to do my 100th, on the hottest day so far of the year!  Who does that!  I came prepared ......well prepared for after the run I had cakes, Naggy had to supply me with water for the run, when I went over to her house first thing!  I had forgotten to bring it with me!  It's a hot morning, even at 8:30, I just knew it was going to get even warmer, the weather maps have been showing red bits all over our area!  Shalini came over to Naggys and we all left for Normans Park. I had bought chocolate cake and some butterfly cakes (not homemade, either of them) and CarolWithAnE had made some delicious chocolate brownies!  I was looking forward to those.  I was thinking that the maltesser chocolate cakes would be all melty by the time I get back to dish them out!

Once at the park we walked over to the pavilion to, cakes in hand.  I put

them inside the building, underneath the seat, hiding them away from the faster runners!  I wasn't the only one doing a mile stone run, SingstarJo and NatalieC were doing 300th and 200th respectively!  I just wish I had got together with them at the end to get a picture of 100th, 200th and 300th parkrunner milestoners!  But check out the picture towards the end of the blog!  You can see how come I didn't go and search them out!

These are what CarolWithAnE made these

Once we had put our cakes away we walked over to the start, by the play park!  We are back to the summer route of course!  All the way up the other end of the park!  We were walking along and the KevTwoBalls said "Come on Old Girl, you got 90 seconds to get to the start"  We had to do a warm jog to get there!  But we made it in time, to hear the RD read out the names of all those doing their milestone runs!  Lots of cheering for the volunteers milestones, the junior members doing their 10th and then the 50's, 100's, 200's and 300's!  It really is an achievement.  Some people have reached their milestones a lot quicker than I did.  I ran my first parkrun 8 years ago, 22nd April, 2011, 5 months after joining Petts Wood Runners!  How do I know that, because I think that day it was a mob match, it was also how I found out about this whole parkrunning business!  I still didn't do that many back then, it took a while before I was hooked on getting up early on a day when I could sleep in late!

I am waffling, just so that I don't have to tell you about the run!  It was hard, so hard, I was so warm,  feeling fat, flabby and totally unmotivated, trying to get my ass around the course, in front of hundreds of people was tough!  But I was still doing it!  Aiming to just finish with a smile on my face and not to throw up in front of hundreds of people.  But, I was still doing it!  That is what I will take from parkrun no 100.  Eight years on, I was still doing it!  CarolWithAnE ran the whole thing with me and with Wendimoo too, reminding me all about the achievements, reminding me about how without PWR CarolWithAnE and RefMichael wouldn't be out here, just doing it!

The last lap Tim'HeadBand' joined with us and he ran the last part of the course with us, from the pavilion back to the pavilion,going around the park, just not along by the river! It really was a great 100th run, not great as in a great time, because to be frank, it was pathetic!  But great that I was doing it and sharing the day with my running buddies, NaggyNeighbour CaroleWithAnE, RefMichael, Auriol, and so many more!

This was me, not a pretty sight and the end, but I soon rallied around and made a little speech.....just look at this!

So parkrun no.100 done, 44 minutes plus!  But I did it!