What an amazing experience parkrun is! Regardless of the lousy weather forecast, 124 runners and walkers came to Hasenheide to take part in the best start to the weekend. Thanks to my lucky socks the rain stayed away and it was perfect running and volunteering conditions instead. Although parkrun is not a race, it is inspiring to see people developing on their journeys with new PBs. There was quite a push by the front runners this week and they all achieved PBs – sometimes you just need someone to spur you on!
So it was run #70 for us and although there were no 70 year olds taking part, we did welcome Jane, the walking barcode, who had completed 70 parkruns when she arrived yesterday morning! The ingenuity of creating a t-shirt that incorporates your actual barcode (bottom right) means you never leave home without it.
There were some exciting milestones this week and it’s an honour to host people on their special days. Kathryn from Oxfordshire came to run her 250th and brought some very welcome British chocolates to share with us (yes, Andy, we saved some for you) – thank you! Caroline from Abingdon was celebrating a significant birthday and walked our lovely course on a broken toe! Honeymooners Beryl and Neil came to visit us from Queensland, Australia and we wish them all the best for their future together.
While it is obvious from our results that many of the “First timers/Erstläufer” are visitors from outside of Berlin, it is great to see so many people doing their first ever parkrun with us. So welcome to the parkrun family Tom, Quentin, Jan, Louise, Bor, Kareth, Friederike, Mohamed, Ahmed and Colin – we look forward to welcoming you back again very soon.
Within our amazing team of volunteers we also had a “first timer” as Amela scanned barcodes alongside the experienced Christian. Achim and Cornie made a dream team of timers. Grit made sure that everyone new their place by handing out tokens and liaising with the timers to keep us all on track. Britta, Ulrike, Maximilian, Aljoscha and Elisabeth made sure that everyone was safe “unterwegs” and Helen made sure that we had all the kit that helps us to make our mark in the Hasenheide every Saturday morning – thank you all!
Next week parkrun falls on “Star Wars Day”, May the 4th so feel free to dress up as your favourite character from the franchise, or just dress up for the fun of it.
Not in the mood to run or walk? Injured? Then consider being a volunteer – in the next few weeks we need a variety of roles to be filled so please send an email to hasenheide@parkrun.com if you can help.
There are more pics from the run in our Google photos album here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/WMUYS4FJFm8emabA6
Have a great week
Mandy (dog sitting RD)