And we're off

One of the advantages of volunteering to 'set up' at parkrun is that you have to be there at 8 and you get to observe the park coming to life as the different users arrive.  The park staff, the dog walkers, the early walkers and the people opening up the various businesses within the park.

The set up duties have been split into 3 separate jobs and today I was in charge of the finish.  This involves arranging bollards and signage to direct people from the point that I stood at last week (as timer), past the funnel manager and to the point that they collect their position tokens (jobs that I have yet to try).

After a false start where I located the finish at the wrong bench which, as a slightly shorter route,  might have pleased a few people and upset a whole load more, the job satisfied my OCD tendencies as I got to position cones and markers at intervals along the finishing stretch.

I then got to chat with a few of the other volunteers and was doing that when my friend arrived for her first parkrun outing.

I spent the next half an hour chatting and taking photo's before we headed off from the start. The swan in todays blip took off just ahead of the runners.   I stopped a few times on route to take more pictures and then had to jog to catch my friend up  which was rather warming.

We have already pencilled in another date for her parkrun two .  Hoping it will be just as good as today.