Queen’s Glasgow – first day of a February of firsts

Happy February everyone. It only feels like yesterday that we were all enjoying our New Year’s Day Double parkrun and setting our resolutions for 2020 and January has already flown by.

This month is an exciting month of parkrun firsts. This will be the first ever February that has 5 parkruns. At the end of the month we will all have the chance to run the first ever 29 February parkrun. If you like stats and niches that’s one not to be missed. Surely he’ll take me? The next 29 February parkrun after that will be 2048 so I think it’s fair to say this will be my one and only chance of a Leap Day parkrun.

As you might know Jim selfishly ditched me last weekend because apparently he needed to do his long run on Saturday. To rub salt into the wounds he even went to one of my favourite parkruns at Levengrove where apparently I was missed.

This week it’s back to another of our favourites at Queen’s Park. Jim’s clearly chasing down his Volunteer Club T-shirt as we were on duty again. He makes this volunteer shift number 23 though it’s only my second. It’s been amazing how many new parkruns have opened up within a 40 mile radius of home the last few months but it does create the need for about another 100 volunteers a week so it’s only fair that we take our turn.

So back to Queen’s Park for our fourth time. Hills are your friends they say. They must be a ruff bunch if that’s the case. We really love this parkrun, its beautiful park, its “testing” climbs, its awesome core team and regular volunteer pup Charlie the cockapoo.

It was a glorious day. The sun was splitting the skies. Not really. It was wet wild and windy. You could barely see Glasgow city centre never mind the Campsies in the distance from the flagpole at the top. Dad keeps arguing that rain’s not a problem as skin is waterproof. Speak for yourself mate. Try having fur. Not only does it get frizzy but it weighs twice as much when wet!

We arrived just before 9 and had a wee explore before we reported for duty at the bandstand and caught up with Blythe, Laura, Charlie and the rest of the gang.

After my recent Levengrove tail walker shift I consider myself a bit of a veteran now at this volunteering lark but we paid attention to our instructions, dad got his high vis on and we got our game face on.

We had even done our homework and read the parkrun volunteer guidance in the new Volunteer Hub:

Volunteer for the love of it

Treat everyone as a friend

Be kind and respectful

Unite as a team

Be reliable, responsible and attentive

Be helpful and enthusiastic

Do your best

Respect our principles

Easy! Rules to live life by arguably too.

We met a lot of our friends before the start today including Chloe, Barb, David, Iain, Casey and Laura G as well as Andy and Cordelia from WERR. Not a lot of people know it but Cordelia’s responsible for me becoming a dog-blogger so you can direct your complaints to her. Apologies for anyone who found mucky paw prints on their running gear. I was just so happy to see you all. No actually I was just seeing if you had any treats.

I’ve said it before but we love being the tail. You get to see so many different aspects of parkrun, get some more interaction with the marshalls, encourage the speedies as they lap you and meet some fascinating people out there. Today was no exception. We got to accompany an amazing man called Bill who was recovering from a very serious Illness. He was brilliant and it was lovely accompanying him round. On both of my tail volunteering shifts we have met someone convalescing and using parkrun to get out and about and to regain their fitness. Another example of the appeal and benefit of parkrun and how it offers something for everyone.

We part ran and park walked today and the rain stayed off for most of it in the end. We went round in just over 55 minutes and finished in position 173. Given the weather before the start that’s a pretty damn impressive turnout. We got plenty treats at the finish area then we went back to the cafe afterwards and I got even more treats for the road.

So another very enjoyable week at parkrun. The hills were a lot easier at a more comfortable pace today and we had great fun out there accompanying the inspirational Bill round.

It was nice to see Charlie again too and we got to run together for a wee bit. And I mean a wee bit. Charlie wasn’t running with his regular human and decided to stage a one dog sit-down protest after only 200m before reverting to marshalling duty with Laura.

Dad says he’s long-running without me again next Saturday and maybe taking in Ruchill parkrun but we’re hopefully going to venture to Dunfermline the week after. Not quite our NENDY but not far off.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks. Looks like I’ve managed to avoid a bath too this weekend which is a bonus.

Crumble out x