Storms...

Today was parkrunday, the last parkrun for 2023, my 52nd volunteer for 2023... We chose to head to Sirromet and be amongst friends... When we drove into the Sirromet Winery there was Wallabies waiting for us... It was hot and humid even before 7am start time for parkrun, the runners/walkers set off, 1st runner crossed the finish line just after 22 minutes... Then we heard rumbles of thunder, the clouds were turning grey, a few more runners cross the finish line, now the thunder is getting closer and now there's lots of lightning, next minute the heavens open... One of the guys who came back in the first few runners grabs his car keys and takes off running to the carpark where his 4WD is, he's heading out onto the course to check on the runners still out there and actually pick up a mum with 3 young ones who are walking with the tailwalker... By this stage we are at 35 minutes into parkrun, we are all drenched, my phone is wet and as I'm timekeeper my phone is important, 22 runners had made it back before the rain drops start adding non existing runners, the RD tells me to head for cover away from the trees as they'd just seen lightning hit a tree on the next Ridge and it fell over... Most of us sort shelter up outside the buildings undercover... The RD on duty today and 3 other RD not on duty stayed to make sure everyone got back and carried all the gear up to undercover... The mum and 3 young ones arrive back soaking wet but unharmed, David has jogged out to Ruben who is marshalling at the top of the first hill had enough sense to move down the hill away from the trees... Everyone arrives back safely... The tub of towels in the back of my car is well appreciated for everyone to dry off, most of us decide to stay put and have coffee like we usually do after parkrun there and let the storm finish... I've dried my phone and it takes a few goes to get the app to do what I need it to do... We had 29 finish the course, the last few I didn't have official times for but they handed out finish tokens and took note of times on watches... The RD processed the results and everyone was happy with times they were given... We then started heading home and saw more lightning in the direction we were heading... Ruben was keeping track of this storm on his phone and we managed to get home and into the garage before the heavens opened up again...All before 10am... There was a few more storms about during the day...