The start of Highbury Fields Parkrun

As a part of my training to run a sub-1:50 half marathon, I’m under strict instructions from my coach to “not do all the things.”  This is my time to focus on running and the goals I’ve associated with it.  In my training plan the rest days are just as important as the training days, and just because I have a lunchtime free, I probably shouldn’t go to bootcamp just because.

I have also set a goal this year to volunteer at more races than I run, and with my newly free Saturday mornings I figured what better time to start volunteering at my parkrun?  I absolutely love parkrun and short of the running-so-fast-for-5k-I-want-to-vomit it’s my ideal Saturday. Volunteering at it brings all the love without the vomit! Perfect!

This is 5k vomit pace…

It’s super easy to volunteer:

1. Follow parkrun and your local parkrun on twitter. They’ll usually tweet when they’re really short on volunteers.

2. Check your Parkrun’s volunteer page for contact details and email them the dates you want to volunteer.

3. Show up on Saturday  morning, don a beautiful parkrun high-vis vest, and get your instructions for the day.  My favourite jobs are Timekeeper & Finish Tokens as you get to see people right as they finish and they are most grateful to not be running any more. Barcode scanning is fun too as you get to see everyone’s clever Parkrun barcode setups. I’ve scanned trainers, tshirts, barcodes ripped in two, and wallets.

There is always a great group of other volunteers who are there to help if you have any questions and both runners & volunteers are so friendly that short of tripping someone at 4.89kms you can’t make any mistakes.  My local Parkrun is pretty quick and everyone’s usually done by 35 minutes, so we’re all at the cafe for coffee before 10am! Plus you get a lovely email and text of your “results” later that day.