Parkun 111 - our inaugural fashion parade

Welcome to the inaugural 2016 parkrun fashion parade. We have a lot of exceptional models lined up for you so let’s get started.

First up we have Kent who wears his signature smile and a PB of 18:45. He is only the second home grown parkrunner after Errol to hit the 100 mark. Kent has been a parkrun tourist at more venues than I have had hot meals. He is a regular pacer and one of our fastest and most accomplished runners, but this is not his biggest achievement. His biggest achievement is getting his mum, dad and 2 sisters hooked on running parkrun or otherwise. He’s known for signing them up for competitions without even asking them first.

Speaking of sisters next up we have Aimee and Stacey. Aimee wears a PB of 25:41 and Stacey wears a PB of 29:01. Aimee took a bit of time to warm up to the cold morning starts and Stacey didn’t like the early morning starts but they have both been regular since parkrun 57 (either home or as tourists). If you follow them on Strava you’ll see that they clock up some serious kilometres every week and certainly put me to shame with their dedication.

Next weekend all three of them will run the Greenbelt half marathon, so we wish them a good run.

Congratulations to you Stacey, Aimee and Kent.

Next on the catwalk we need some junior 10 runners. Are Georgia Farrugia and Esme Kitching here? … Congratulations!

Last week we had 168 runners and 20 of them did not bring their barcodes. Did you know that the official parkrun rule is ‘no barcode, no result’? The truth is we don’t like you missing out on getting a time so when we process the results we go through a lot of effort to decipher your writing and look you up in a database of thousands and then take a guess as to which one of the many John Smiths is you.

All of this takes time, so to help you remember to bring your barcodes we’ll continue with our fashion parade.

Could someone please model for us a bracelet barcode? Don’t be shy, otherwise we’ll be here all day. Impress your friends with your bracelet barcode. You won’t ever have to take them off.

Next could someone please model a keyring barcode? Lovely! You could wear those as a keyring, earing, nosering or a shoering.

Another battle tested approach is the good old laminated barcode on a rubber band.

Lastly we have the barcode box where you can place one of your spares and never worry about missing on your result again.

Now, are there any first timers? Could you come out here please? What’s your name? It’s excellent brain training having to remember all the names of the new comers. I encourage you all to try it and say ‘hi’ afterwards.

Would any visitors like to grace our catwalk? Welcome! I bet you didn’t expect to be a part of a fashion parade when you woke up this morning.

Our volunteers today will conclude our fashion parade. Charlie is our photographer again and didn’t he do a great job last week? Jodie will be handing out the finish tokens, Ross will scan them and Lewis will sort them. I’ll be on stopwatch.

We are always looking for more volunteers so please come and see us if you are interested.

Without further ado, I declare this fashion parade finished so let’s get running.