A momentous parkrun day in the Running Dan household as Mrs Dan joined us at Bushy parkrun for her parkrun début. She has threatened to join us for some time to “find out what all the fuss is about” and the planets aligned this week so that she was able to join us for a visit to the cradle of parkrun.
We picked Bushy because Mrs Dan is very much a walk-run-walk runner and she did not want to still be out there with a potentially impatient parkrun team waiting for her to finish. I repeatedly told her that parkrun is not a race and there is no problem with walking but she was still nervous about making her first appearance.
We arrived nice and early to make sure we secured a parking space in the notoriously busy car park and sat laughing in the car as an unfortunate runner managed to make an unplanned striptease in front of us as bits of clothing fell down around inappropriate places.
The start area was packed with 900+ runners as usual with The Son and Mrs Dan at the back waiting for the starters orders. The Son was happy to accompany Mrs Dan so I went running off with the mantra of “20 mile run tomorrow – do not go fast today” repeating over and over in my head. I managed to slow myself a bit but could not resist passing the other runners around me to finish in a time just under 23 minutes.
I made a quick pit-stop at the car to grab a bottle of water and coat then jogged backwards around the course to join my two intrepid walkers. The Son took this as his cue to run the last km while I walked and ran with Mrs Dan to the finish where I made sure that she scanned her barcode correctly.
It was a real pleasure to make parkrun day a family affair this week although Mrs Dan was a little disappointed to find that there was only one other finisher behind her. There were a few runners back there but we noticed that they did not complete the course to register a finishing time. She plans to join us again, possibly next week when we visit Richmond parkrun, but next time she might just run-walk-run the first half before cutting across to the finish area to meet us. Mrs Dan does not have any desire to keep recording finishes and that’s ok with me because I am pleased to see her joining us for some family time.
Running Dan parkrun result:
- parkrun time: 0:22:52
- Garmin time: 0:22:54
- Finish position: 229 / 904
- Gender position: 194 / 565
- Age category: SM35-39
- Age grade: 59.26 %
The Son parkrun result:
- parkrun time: 0:41:47
- Garmin time: not taken
- Finish position: 895 / 904
- Gender position: 565 / 565
- Age category: JM14
- Age grade: 36.62 %
Mrs Dan parkrun result:
- parkrun time: 0:46:01
- Garmin time: not taken
- Finish position: 903 / 904
- Gender position: 337 / 338
- Age category: VW40-44
- Age grade: 34.19 %
