It starts like a David Gray song in reverse, a farewell to one location, a welcome to a new home & some people scratching their heads as they preferred the original song, not the White Ladder cover, alas White Ladder was a soundtrack to a cadet camp back in the day, providing some respite from some genuinely awful acoustic guitar.
Marathon Planning
Bizarrely, in the first week of my hiatus from running, marathon planning became a thing. Not a whole scale marathon plan to be fair, more so just working through the calendar to find a likely start date that’ll give me a good 20+ weeks to get to London. Nothing more than a shell at the moment, I’ve taken the Berlin plan that worked well for me & stripped it down to a simple 3 to 4 runs per week. Manchester got clouded with attempting to over train, over diversify, try & satisfy the needs of others rather than myself.
So London will be back to basics, one bit of speedwork a week, one long run a week, something in the middle. Georgia has already told me she’ll be there to make sure I stick to the plan, who knows I might make it to the start line in decent shape.
The final Hatfield Forest parkrun
A date that had been in the diary for long enough now, it was time to say goodbye to the forest. The seasons had already turned, so our last event would be on the original winter route. In addition, the poor weather on the penultimate weekend, combined with parkrun, general traffic and the Hatfield Half parking, made the use of Elgin’s unlikely, the NT posting a clear closure message earlier in the week.
We had planned a celebratory picnic, so after a long hiatus, I dusted off the sausage roll recipe in preparation, chucked a couple of bottles of Prosecco into the fridge the night before.
As for actual parkrun preparation? I had reached out to former core team members to let them know of the date and asking if they could attend. My usual run briefing was substituted for a mere 3 pages of parkrun rules, farewells and thank yous. My entire MO was to emphasise and celebrate the positive, what parkrun had brought to the local area and what the future potentially held for us in a new location.
Setup was easy, I had the largest setup team I’d seen at the forest, a dozen of us as many wanted to give back to the event before running. This made everything nice and stress free, the temporary lanyards could be cut up with ease, no pressure. We hadn’t advertised which route we’d be running (although it would be obvious to long standing regulars), purposefully leaving the finish funnel not constructed, not putting out a start sign (that certainly wouldn’t come back to bite me!).
I drew the core team in before our briefings would take place so that I could thank them for the support and solidarity we’ve had at the forest. It was hugs over handshakes, time to enjoy the day and get on with the main briefing.
A mere three pages of notes to get through, at least I wasn’t shaking like the original relocation announcement. Instead I was saying goodbye to our dear friend, the first home for our parkrun, although not before the core team stepped in and took over the briefing.
For a moment I thought David was holding the microphone for me to make it easier for me. Instead he handed the mic to Mark who’d prepared a statement (and with one fell swoop knocked out several lines of my notes!) and a thank you to me which completely blindsided me and had me going towards tears. I still had plenty of thank yous to get through and some words on parkrun itself, I knew throughout the morning I’d be teetering between emotions, I was just going to go with whatever happened.
With queues in the car park & the longer than normal introduction, we were away a lot later than planned, 09:18 according to the Garmin. It was done though, the final 5km around the forest was underway, at least it was once I dragged the runners back to the start line!
Numbers were huge. Many locals wanted to say goodbye to the venue & whilst the majority of tourists had said there goodbyes in the lead up to the farewell event, many had decided that they wanted to see the forest, I suspect some freak show curiosity came into their decision making. Firstly, many see a request to stay away as a direct affront & will do their utmost to defy. Secondly, many like to go to a first event, this gave a unique opportunity, a last event.
None the less, it meant plenty to consider as we setup the finish funnel. The winter course was never as heavily populated, apart from a freak event on Christmas Eve last year. So the finish funnel was doubled in length & the PA system employed constantly to get runners queuing properly at all three scanners after the run. I grabbed anyone that gave a semblance of being available to Funnel Manage, Georgia & Callum were rattling through finish tokens at a rate of knots. We only had 448. And what of the stopwatches, they only go up to 500….
When your regular 25, 28 minute runners are seeing far higher finisher tokens, you know there is a potential for an issue. Thankfully the runners started to thin out, 424 our eventual number.
227 cars through the front gate (plus setup volunteers), proof if ever there was any needed that a change was needed.
Slightly shell shocked from the sheer volume of participants, it was time to relax for a moment and enjoy a picnic with the core team & runners. The sausage rolls had made an appearance at the forest after a significant hiatus, we had prosecco & cups exchanged for a measure from the NT cafe team. Everyone had brought something, we had a nice moment to say goodbye to an event, a venue that had been our home for over two years. Not one of these guys had been part of my life before parkrun, yet now we were a family, a group of people that have enjoyed the ups and downs.
Event close down was slightly different to the norm. Instead of slinging everything into the storage container, all the kit went into the Volvo, the keys handed back to the NT. And that was that, job done.
Castle Park prep
With a week between the closure of Hatfield Forest & the launch of Castle Park, any time that I could put into preparation was vital. The week prior I’d had work trips to Paris & Bicester, thankfully I had a relatively clear week this time around.
Of course preparation isn’t always at home. On Sunday, Georgia & I found ourselves driving around Danbury to support Duke of Edinburgh expeditions groups from Georgia’s school. Whilst parked up at one of our locations, I worked out of the boot of the Volvo, unscrewing signs from their wooden posts. The posts, with a nail glued into the bottom of them were a feature from the forest, a design that worked nicely, but meant that signage was both heavy & cumbersome.
My brief time on the Linford Wood core team had introduced me to how other events were doing things. Andrew was employing a tent peg method. It meant signage was lower to the ground, but also allowed signs to be a bit lighter.
I wasn’t fully satisfied with the design, so took that idea & worked it around a bit. I had a prototype, a metal triangular tent peg, with Velcro on the outer corner. Whilst this worked, there were two potential issues. Firstly the area of contact was minimal, just the corner of the peg, it wouldn’t take much contact to knock it. Secondly, in this format it wouldn’t work for straight or larger arrows as the back of the peg would poke into the sign, prohibiting contact with the Velcro.
We had a glue gun, we had a lot of glue sticks left over from the wedding day Run Director jacket……
Sometimes you start something without realising how onerous it would be. Turns out, filling 50+ tent pegs with about 7 applications of hot glue is time consuming! I think I’m also a couple of fingerprints down after some gluing errors. The result? They aren’t the lightest, but they do work and allow for signage to be condensed and changeable, ideal for our course as some arrows get re-pointed after the start.
In the week between HF and CP, my early mornings and early evenings were consumed with tent pegs, glue and Velcro. I wanted to get a gym visit, a swim in, but the parkrun had to take precedence as there was a deadline. I eventually had enough by Thursday evening!
Everything became a bit last minute as low ink cartridges necessitated a late night visit to a supermarket after watching Nick Helm in Cambridge. Anyone who thinks that parkrun happens all thanks to luck and circumstance has never seen an Event Director at work, printing collateral at 6am whilst shovelling toast and hoping not to forget anything. Don’t get me wrong, ED’s do it because they love doing it, but there is something bordering on the edge of sanity when your Amazon browsing history is a plethora of tent pegs and you take a family trip to Go Outdoors so that you can pick up a batch of pegs…..
The inaugural Castle Park parkrun
Fresh off of a nice full, night of sleep, make that less than 6 hours, it was time to get this show on the road. With time against us, some paperwork would remain as Hatfield Forest, Scanner Manager and Finish Token Support clipboards would have to wait a week.
I didn’t make a list for all of the various parkrun paraphernalia dotted around the house, so it was of no surprise that we showed up in Stortford without a PA system. At least the finish tokens made it there!
We arrived with plenty of time, allowing Mark and I to take one side of the course, Georgia and Oliver the other, with Francesca directing traffic at the start & finish. Version 4.0 of the course map was literally hot off the printer, hopefully, with Georgia and I on either side of the course we should have everything figured out.
First thing of note, my steel toe capped boots, a stalwart of forest parkruns no longer possess the ability to keep water out. This meant I had drenched socks and feet until I got home, at about 5pm. The boots soon took up residency in the bin.
I started off the pre run briefing, before handing over to my Joint Event Director, Georgia.
That’s right, Joint Event Director. Where as Georgia liked to call the forest event my baby, since day 1 this has been a joint effort. In fact, a parkrun in Stortford was going to be Georgia’s before it was ever going to also be mine. Before we knew a move from Hatfield Forest was a definite requirement, we had discussed George being the Bishop’s Stortford (as it was then, still no confirmed venue) Event Director, whilst I retained the forest. When the decision was made that we would be moving, it was a natural fit that I remained as ED, likewise after being party to every discussion, every meeting, every route walk, run, course map, briefing note, kit order, it was also a natural fit that Georgia held the role alongside me.
In truth, Georgia has been instrumental in the management of Hatfield Forest for far longer than she’s been given credit for & her now taking on a formal Joint Event Director role properly acknowledges this. With two of us in charge, it eases the burden of responsibility from me, gives multiple sources of guidance to the core team as that team evolves with the move.
The runners at Hatfield Forest & consequently Castle Park probably have no idea just how fundamental to the event Georgia is. When we first got together, I was in the process of trying to manage my exit from the forest, as life had taken me west, to Milton Keynes. As our relationship grew, I found myself back in Essex more, eventually moving back, into a house together as a family, everything with us clicked, where as work in Milton Keynes soon turned sour, leading to eventual redundancy.
I was still going through redundancy in the spring when the decision was made to end parkrun at the forest. Without Georgia there, the prop me back up again when I wanted to fall, we wouldn’t be celebrating an inaugural. Just as parkrun had been a force for good in my life, it had been restorative for Georgia too & her strength & support meant that the easier decision to allow for a full event closure was avoided. Instead she got me looking to the future, putting together paperwork to pitch parkrun to the local authorities.
So now Georgia gets to be fully immersed in the Event Director experience. For those that wonder on the scale of parkrun enjoyment, an apt summary was provided by Len, my mentor from Great Notley:
parkrun enjoyment level 1: Running
parkrun enjoyment level 2: Volunteering (non running roles)
parkrun enjoyment level 3: Run Director
parkrun enjoyment level 4: Event Director
parkrun enjoyment level 5: Seeing one of your core team move on to setup a new event.
For those still stuck on level 1, you’ve much to learn & enjoy as you’ll find out!
Anyhow, whilst my awesome Joint Event Director put the finishing touches to the run briefing, I wandered over to the start line to take everything in for a moment. Setting up one parkrun event was emotional enough, this occasion was different though. I just felt immensely satisfied & relieved. We could have been another Little Stoke. That fact escapes those that still like to comment on how they miss, or mourn for the forest. In fact, to pine for the forest does nothing but disrespect the months of effort that have gone into making a smooth, one weekend to the next transition from one venue to another. Sadly there will always been pint glass half empty people, but they were vastly outnumbered by happy, smiling faces on this Saturday.
We had all of 18 minutes respite, then the runners were returning. With runners chatting around the finish area, this already felt like home. 333 of them eventually, by half ten the park looked like we’d never been there. A parkrun in a public park, like it’s kind of meant to be, I can’t help but be happy with that.
The Eat
The breakfast venue after event #1 was the Wetherspoons in Stortford. Even after the pilot event debacle.
Event #2’s breakfast was elsewhere in Stortford, make your own conclusions…..
The Music
“My mummy says I’m a miracle”
Three months of rehearsals, upheaval, all worth it with one line. Not just one line, but the first line of the show, Matilda in the West End, by Callum, starring as Eric, dressed as Batman.
This summer has been hectic, as previous blog posts have alluded to. The other ball the family was juggling was a rehearsal schedule, not that I could say that over the course of the summer itself. And yet everyone has taken it in their stride, none more so than Callum, who looked like he belonged on stage.
I was on tissue duty, Georgia was threatening to be like Gazza with his fingers caught in a packet of Walkers! Instead we just sat back in awe, full of pride for Callum’s performance. We’ve seen the show twice now, I know most will watch it for Matilda, but in fairness, we watch it for Eric, our star of the show!
The Conclusion
A month to remember. Georgia & I said our goodbyes to the place, the parkrun where we first met & together launched a new parkrun that would in time replace Hatfield Forest as the focal point for inclusive participation in the local area.
Hatfield Forest parkrun gave me purpose & a focal point at a time in my life where I was struggling. Then it gave me a place to find myself & evolve. Then, when the time was right & the healing process almost complete, Georgia was there & the forest became even more significant. Saying goodbye was emotional, dragged out over several months, but having helped both of us, we can say goodbye fondly, together cutting the ribbon on Castle Park, ready for the new adventure.
Run for the Eat 