What a great morning! We were lucky enough to be involved in the launching of a brand new parkrun event this morning at Victoria Point, in the Redlands Shire, on the south side of Brisbane (Queensland).
[parkrun = Free, weekly, timed community event for walkers and runners that is run by volunteers every single Saturday, Covid notwithstanding, in 23 countries around the world. And yes, it's spelt as all one word, all lowercase 😉]
Brad was a marshal at the far end turnaround point and I (Caroline) was handing out finish tokens to each person as they crossed the finish line.
We had awesome weather, which no doubt contributed to a huge turnout; 282 humans (plus a few dogs) covered the 5km course on foot.
Today's event was made possible by 17 volunteers. We won't need that many volunteers every week, but we had a feeling that this "soft launch" (i.e. trying to keep the launch a bit of a local secret so it could get off to a good start) was going to be a rather big event. It was. 282 people is a lot for this course, but it all went well.
This was me, enthusiastically welcoming people back as they crossed the line and finished their 5km. I've never really loved this particular volunteer role as I usually find it fairly stressful but today I really got how cool it is that I get to celebrate with people as they finish their run or walk. Or maybe it was that there were so many familiar faces. I've spent so much time touring around to different parkruns that I've never had the experience of recognising so many people at one parkrun before.
Meanwhile, Brad was out on the course. He had to walk out to the far end and back again to fulfill his role (which suited him just fine!). While he was out there he took a bunch of gorgeous photos of his fellow parkrunners as well as areas alongside the course. This was one of the best ones. Pretty, hey?
And there's Brad, walking back in with the tail walkers (the volunteers whose job it is to come last so no-one gets left behind) and a marshal who had to cover another spot on this complicated course.
Speaking of the course, this is what it looks like 👇 Each of the 424 parkruns currently in Australia (and the several thousand that exist globally) are made to suit the local park or area on which its held. It has to be 5km and it can't cross a road or a driveway, but other than that it can be loops or an out-and-back course, or a complicated, convoluted route that still covers the 5km.
This course is a lop-sided Y shape, that is run almost entirely on concrete paths. It starts at the bottom of the Strava screenshot (the southern end) and heads up/north, turning off to the left/west for the first out-and-back that goes over a gorgeous bridge. Then it comes back past that middle junction (where there's a HUGE tree and a marshal) and continues onto the second, longer out-and-back section that goes over boardwalks as it heads generally north east. After the second turnaround point it's time to run (or walk) home.
All up it was a brilliant morning. We're both looking forward to watching this new parkrun location evolve over time as the local community embraces parkrun in its hood.