FINAL RUN REPORT FOR 2020

BOXING DAY

EVENT #439

Well that’s it.  parkrun 2020 done and dusted.  What a crazy crazy year it has been – like no other in recent memory.  A year when our team of five million put our country in a far superior position than any other in the world.

Due to COVID, Lower Hutt parkrun was only allowed to run 30 events.  Its 8th birthday in May went uncelebrated and it fell short of its 450th event which was scheduled to occur inOctober. Still, we must remind ourselves that so many other countries have not had a parkrun since March and have been making do with “non-parkruns”.  That may not change any time soon.  Let’s be grateful.

What happened at 2020’s final event?

10->50->100->250->500

Talk about timing their run.  The following reached their milestones at the last event of the year.  Given the year we’ve had, reaching any milestone in 2020 is more coveted than any other. As for today, I think we all looked out the window this morning and thought, I can’t wait another week - nothing will stop us now!

Many CONGRATULATIONS to these blokes:

Bruce McCARDLE 350

Peter MURMU 250

Brian THOMSON 250

Jim MAWER 150

Alan CARMAN 100 

Don STEVENS 50

Chris BISHOP 50

and

ME  300!  

I treated myself to a first visit to the Buzz Café where the coffee is perfect and the cheese scones delicious! I’ll be back before #350!

NEWBIES AND TOURISTS

The tourist and newbie numbers usually swell during the holiday season. Not so in 2020. To the brave three new parkrunners, welcome to the parkrun whanau.  We hope to see you again: Luke EVANS, Jenny BURRIDGE and Tony PIETRAS – the weather isn’t always like this!

And we trust the six parkrun tourists from around the motu all enjoyed their visit to Lower Hutt.  Two notable tourists that exemplify the genuine definition of a parkrun tourist areShamiso SISIMAYI who has run at over 50 parkrun eventsaround the world; and Jim MAWER over 30!

Safe travels to you all and we hope to see you again soon.

FIRST EQUAL?!!

At the time of writing, the whole field of 113 finished with the same time!  59:59 meaning 1st equal!  I am sure this glitch would have been resolved by the time of publishing, so enjoy it while you can!

The finishing positions are accurate where the following flew around the course today:

1st​Ben MAI and Rosie HAY

2nd​Daniel RUSS and Nikki EVERTON

3rd​Luke CARMAN and Shamiso SISIMAYI

The timing glitch means we can’t officially say who ran PBs today.

VOLUNCHEERS!

It’s days like today where we are all truly grateful to our wonderful team of volunteers.  Big cheers to our last volunteer crew of the year led by Run Director, Susan HAYNES.  As the field of 113 sought shelter under the trees,Susan made a smart decision to keep the run briefing verybrief this morning!

Thank you to Carole WRIGHT, Margaret DONOVAN, Sharon CLARK, Paul GORDON, Martin O’SULLIVAN, Andrew JONES, Roy BLEWETT, Craig THOMPSON,Joce JONES, Julia GORDON, Liz NEILL and moi!

And a huge thanks to ALL of our volunteers in 2020 who, come rain, wind, frost or shine made sure the parkrun show did go on.  Without the volunteers, parkrun just does not happen. 

TO 2021

That just leaves us to ponder what is in store for us in the New Year.  As long as we stay at AL1, Round the Bays of returns in February; the kids’ Weet Bix TRYathlon series and XRACE events are scheduled to go in March; the Olympics will try to start again in Tokyo; and we will hopefully have a new parkrun event to enjoy in Upper Hutt.  So, still a lot to be excited about…

To all our parkrun whanau, do have a safe New Year’s celebrations.  We hope to see you at one of the local New Year’s Day events in Porirua, Kapiti and Greytown.  To those travelling, particularly on our roads, drive safely, don’t forget to pack your barcode!

And don’t get complacent - keep scanning!

Manuia le tausaga fou (Happy New Year!)

Nga mihi,

Vatau Sagaga

A555116

For my first stint at volunteering, I chose to do the Run Report. This ended up being the perfect role because I’ve sadly fallen victim to some sort of virus and have had to give parkrun a miss this morning. Don’t worry, it’s not COVID-19 (I got tested) but I knew the responsible thing to do in these times was to stay away this week.

I sent some of my elves out to the riverbank to give me a report on the conditions and overall feel of parkrun this morning. Apparently, one ended up in someone’s pocket, getting a first-hand view of the full course. The elf made a good time, although some claimed he was cheating – but what do you expect from an elf who normally sits on a shelf? Unfortunately, he hasn’t come back to me with his report so I don’t know what his full experience was like, sadly.

The other elves tell me there were some very ominous looking clouds over the valley – it felt like the parkrunners were about to head into a dark and evil place like Mordor. It’s always a foreboding feeling when you see clouds like that at the start of parkrun. You wonder, ‘Am I going to get wet today? Or will I make it back just in time?’. But it was warm…no need for a hoodie today.

The wind pushed everybody down the course for the first half. Some of the lead runners were boosting it, even with the ruthless headwind on the way back. One elf tells me there were a couple zooming along past the 3km mark in under 11 minutes! Anthony JACKSON finished first (17:16), followed by Walter SOMERVILLE (17:35) and Andrew RUTHERDALE (18:43). The first female finishers were Holly COUCH (24:37), Lauren DABB (24:49 – also a PB!), and Samantha BOVEY (25:54).

There were 8 first timers at Lower Hutt parkrun (welcome):
Ariki VERTONGEN (21:16)
David HOOD (22:09)
Mark LUTNANT (23:27)
Kim FIELD (30:37)
Flora KAY (30:51)
Madison RAE (31:27)
Andrew RAE (31:27)
Beatrix MURRAY (38:42)

16 people got PBs!:
Jacob ANDERSON-WALLACE (22:10)
Jonny LUSBY (22:54)
Gary NORTHEY (24:26)
Noah VAN DER LINDEN (24:43)
Jack MORRISSEY (24.44)
Lauren DABB (25:49)
Katie BENSON (28:26)
Natasha HOPE (28:54)
Svend HANSEN (29:03)
Braden LISTER (31:59)
Tracey XU (32:40)
Jasmin MORRISS (36:10)
Ramya RAVISHANKAR (36:14)
Poppy WILKINSON (36:29)
Philomena CHIN (47:18)
Eden MORRISS (47:19)

There weren’t any official milestones today, however Caroline BRAY reached her 150th parkrun. Well done!

There were 10 unknowns, though I know two of them were my elves, I mean, Devin Glover and Jim Baxter (come on you two, get your barcodes)

And of course, thank you to all the volunteers:
Colin BOYD
Gaby COWCILL
Margaret DONOVAN
Neil HAXTON
Susan HAYNES
Mark MALONE
Liz NEILL
Martin O'SULLIVAN
Andrew RIDDLE
Andrea RUGLYS
Matthew RUGLYS
Rob STEAD
Bjorn WINTER
and myself, Mercedes GLOVER

Overall, spirits were high at parkrun today. Even a couple of Christmas t-shirts were spotted. I think everybody is looking forward to the holidays. I hope you all have a festive, happy and safe Christmas break!

Mercedes GLOVER
parkrunner

Here's a short report to mark Lower Hutt parkrun's 8th birthday /anniversary on 5 May.

5 May 2020 marks a special day in the history of Lower Hutt parkrun. Its "Happy 8th Birthday" and it will certainly be Many Happy Returns when we are all able to meet up again (hopefully sooner rather than late, with all things going well).

Event number 1 took place on 5 May 2012 with 84 participants and 5 volunteers. The first person in was Edwin Kaitany in a time of 15 minutes 25 seconds, and this is still the course record. This time was not equalled again till event 142 by Nick Horspool on 1 January 2015. So a longstanding time record is still waiting to be broken for anyone wanting a new challenge!

Dorota Eva Starzak was the first female runner in with a time of 20 minutes 49 seconds. The current female record holder is Phoebe McKnight with a time of 16 minutes 59 seconds,at event 306 on 3 February 2018.

Once a parkrunner, always a parkrunner (and that includes parkwalkers as well). Current Lower Hutt parkrunners who were at event 1, include Chris Speakman, Elaine Richardson, Alistair Willis, Tina Kerr, Bruce McCardle, Allan Hartley, Ian Morton and Andrew Crosland. Alistair, Tina, Bruce, Allan, Ian and Andrew all took part in event 419 on 14 March 2020, the last event before lockdown. The great thing about parkrun is that once you have your barcode, it's forever and you can use it at any parkrun anywhere. (Apologies if I have missed the names of people from event 1, who are active at Lower Hutt and/or other parkrun locations).

Parkrunners at Lower Hutt have run a total of 302,985 kilometres in the last eight years ! That's equivalent to 7.6 times around the world. The largest number of participants has been 327 at event 410 on 11 January 2020. Since the beginning of January 2020, we have had an average of 270 participants every week. Volunteer teams have grown from 5 ,just 8 years ago, to 15. So when parkrun resumes, please have a go at a volunteer role, because no volunteers means no parkrun.

Hope everyone and your families are staying safe and well. The parkrun community at Lower Hutt (and all the other parkrun communities) will be back together in due course to enjoy fresh air, friendship and fun running/walking.

" Happy 8th Birthday 

 Lower Hutt parkrun"

parkrunner/parkwalker

Glynis Ng

Another parkrun done, only one left at Lower Hutt for 2018.  It was also my last go at being run director at Lower Hutt, so if you will indulge me, here’s an alphabetical list of my time as being RD and a look at today’s run….

Barcodes – we scanned 228 barcodes today, but unfortunately still had 9 unknown runners. Register and print your barcode (and preferably laminate!) to get your result recorded. It’s a fair amount of hassle to manually add people to the results so please bring your barcode with you each week.

Cake! There was cake at the finish made to celebrate my final stint as RD but today has not been the only baked goods days.  Last week we had milestone cake, and we’ve also had birthday cake and just because cake.  Thanks to all of our willing bakers! Why run if not for the food?

Downloading – two of the exciting developments of this year have been the parkrun volunteer app and the google chrome running challenges extension. Please all download the app if you’re going to volunteer as a barcode scanner – it’s really great! And just for fun, see how many extra badges you have already accumulated in the google running challenges.

Everybody’s welcome! My favourite thing about parkrun is how inclusive it is; today we had humans, dogs and buggies (with tiny humans!). Our participants range in age from under 10 to over 65.

Fancy dress – this year we’ve welcomed a hen, a dinosaur, the Hulk, numerous scary Halloween costumes and of course, this weekend, 37 Tutu clad runners.

Globe Trotting – We’ve welcomed so many overseas tourists this year, and this week was no exception. As well as domestic tourists from many of the other 26 runs in NZ, we also welcomed Australian, South African and British tourists. Remember your barcode works anywhere in the world!

Happy Birthday – in May we celebrated Lower Hutt parkrun’s 6^th birthday with a party, cake and quiz at the Station Gardens, organised by Alastair. It was a unique opportunity to see people in regular clothes!

International Women’s Day – In March I was proud to lead an all female volunteer team to celebrate international women’s day. Parkrun is open and inclusive to everyone, and it was great to be able to acknowledge that in our own way.

Joel Carmen – the name of our first finisher today in an eye-watering sub 16 minute run. Our first female was Ingrid Cree in 19:54. It’s not about the winning, it’s about the taking part, but speaking for myself, seeing the fast runners finish is one of the joys of volunteering as I’m never at the business end of the field!

Kilometres and kilometres – All 237 runners covered 5km today (whether they did it in 16 minutes or 56 minutes). Between them they covered 1,185km which is more than the distance from Lower Hutt to Cape Reinga.

Lead bike – one of our crucial volunteer roles is often filled by parkrun volunteer extraordinaire, AJ. Today he stepped up at the last minute to help out and I’ll be forever grateful!

Milestones – one of the many joys of introducing the run each week is celebrating everyone’s efforts. This week we said well done to Marketa Langova (150 runs), Colleen Cumming (100 runs with a PB!) and Andrea Ruglys who achieved her 25^th volunteering milestone.

New courses – this year many new courses sprung up in New Zealand. We’ll always be the first ever parkrun in NZ and it’s lovely how the community is growing across the country. Our newest neighbour is Greytown parkrun (just over the hill) which is a lovely course if you ever fancy a change.

Only three more sleeps until the next parkrun day. A tenuous O, I’ll admit!

Personal Bests – there were 19 new PBs in the field today – 8% of our runners achieving a new best time. Special mention to AJ Shaw for his 5^thPB in 5 runs and Charlotte Lealuga who took a huge 40 seconds off her last PB to duck under half an hour for the first time

Quiet please! Just one small bugbear of mine – please respect the run director and listen for the 5 minutes of the run briefing. We welcome new runners, celebrate milestones, and share important course safety information. Please save your chat for the run!

Run Directors – a special thanks to Stu, Tony, Alistair and especially Mark for putting up with me for the last year! I’ve made some goofs (mainly technology based) but hopefully I’ve not brought the team into disrepute too much! Best of luck to Jared and Susan who will join the team from next year.

Still reading? Sorry! There are only a few letters to go….

Tea and cake – the best part of parkrun is the coffee, tea, cake, scones, or combination of the above after the run from Buzz Café. Remember you get top notch post-parkun chat as well as 10% off your purchase. You can also help sort the tokens out or watch how the results are processed.

Unknown runners are missing out on their credit! Not only that, the unknown runner in position 155 accidentally took our finish token home today. Please remember to return the tokens at the end as they are part of a set and a bit of a pain to replace. Thanks!

Volunteers – I wouldn’t be able to run direct if it wasn’t for the 11 others who selflessly give up their chance to run each week. Thanks to everyone who has volunteered this year and made sure parkrun
at Lower Hutt can go ahead every week.

Water – as summer heats up, please remember to bring your own water. We have some at the finish but there’s not always enough and we don’t want anyone to go without! It’s important to stay hydrated and take

Xmas runs! There was an extra run at Porirua on Christmas Day and there are TWO extra parkruns on New Year’s Day – join us at Lower Hutt at 08:00 and then 09:30 at Porirua.

You! It wouldn’t be parkrun without our participants so thanks to everyone for coming along week after week.

Zzz sleepy yet? That’s a lot of words! Thanks for reading and for putting up with me for the last year. I’ll still be at Lower Hutt most weeks but I’ll be focussing on my running and ramping up my tourism. Have a lovely Christmas break and we’ll see you soon!

Lizzi Elton-Walters
parkrunner (and former Run Director!)

Kia ora e te whānau o parkrun Te Awakairangi (Lower Hutt)
Ngā mihimahana o te rā ki a koutou.

After a couple of wild unpredictable weeks of weather (just the way we start summer in New Zealand) it was great to have a parkrun morning with merely a gentle breeze.  There were 241 parkrunners and walkers out this morning in great conditions with a light headwind as we headed out to the turnaround. Sure enough there were twenty seven personal best times recorded, with one person getting a PB on their 170^th parkrun!

Welcome to those new to the parkrun community. It's great to have you join us. There were 19 first timers at Lower Hutt this morning, with 8 of those doing their first parkrun! Welcome welcome. We look forward to seeing more of you. We also then had eleven visitors, parkrun tourists – from what I can see they were from Millwater, Dunedin, and Gisborne within NZ, and UK, Australia and South Africa. Nau mai, Haere mai ki Te Awakairangi. Welcome, welcome to Lower Hutt. It was great to have you with us!

There are a myriad of different reasons that bring people out each week, those of us pleased to complete 5k, and those of you doing parkrun as a part of longer distances and other endurance events. I love hearing the stories of other events people are involved with. There are many inspiring people amongst our parkrun community and today was an opportunity to celebrate several of them. We had a whole bunch of milestones reached today. Paula LEVY (visiting from Gisborne) and Bruce INGLIS completed their 50^th parkruns, Patrick DONOVAN and Mary-Ann JANSSEN completed their 150^th, Melchor REYES SR completed his 200^th and we had three new members join the parkrun 250 Club today. Congratulations to Floro ASTRONOMIA, Paul GORDON and Julia GORDON who all completed their 250^th parkrun event this morning. Bravo and Well done!

parkrun is awesome, and I'm always impressed by the team of volunteers keeping things ticking over each week. I decided early on that I would volunteer at least once each year, and 2018 is fast drawing to a close so I had better get one in for this year hey! Lots of people talk about how easy it is to volunteer, but I for one am daunted by the 'technical ' roles like handling the stop watches or tokens, I'm worried about getting it wrong and mucking it up for people waiting for their times... so I've taken the less scary options of things like the run reports and sorting the cones at the turnaround. I took some time this week to chat to some of the other volunteers and find out what was involved in their roles, how it is in the busy times when lots of runners arrive together, and how they keep on top of it all. It sounds manageable, and like all things parkrun, well supported. 2019 can be the year that I step up to one of those more technical volunteer roles. There, I've set myself that challenge now and you all know about it! If anyone else is feeling timid take a moment to ask questions and watch the volunteers in action when you have completed your run, and you will see how doable it is too. Let's get amongst it!  A big thanks to this week's volunteer team: Andrea ADAMS, Anthony BECKETT, Tim COKER, Margaret DONOVAN, Lizzi ELTON-WALTERS, Gina FOSTER, Abby FOSTER, Andrew JONES, Joce JONES, Ann KING, Liz NEILL, Elaine RICHARDSON, Derek RICHARDSON, Sam VISVALINGAM.

As mentioned in earlier reports, there are additional parkruns happening at some of the parkrun venues on Christmas Day and/or New Year's Day, as well as the regular Saturday runs. Nineteen of the 27 Parkrun venues around New Zealand are offering one and/or the other. See the details on the special events page: http://www.parkrun.co.nz/special-events/ (Note that some of the start times are different from the usual 8am.)

Included in these extra runs are a couple of opportunities for a double on New Year’s Day. Locally with Lower Hutt and Porirua, and further north with Cambridge and Hamilton Lake, and also Western Springs and Millwater in Auckland. These are a once a year opportunity to boost your parkrun total, and challenge yourself with two runs in one morning!

Have a wonderful summer – perhaps you will have a chance to add a new venue to your tally. There are so many more venues now, it is exciting to see the growth of parkrun in NZ. There are 27 parkruns around NZ, 18 in the North Island and 9 in the South Island. See the venues page on the NZ Parkrun website for details: https://www.parkrun.co.nz/events/

Mere Kirihimete koutou, best wishes to you, your friends and your whānau

Ngā mihi, Liz Neill  (parkrunner)

On the 8th day of Christmas, parkrun gave to us….

Eight buggies running
Seven (+4) volunteers
Six(teen) first timers
Five 10 and unders

Four under bridge bits
Three plus twenty PBs
Two milestones
On a warm, still December morning!

Yes a lovely morning saw 198 runners and walkers set off along the river on Lower Hutt's 350th parkrun (plus AJ on lead bike who also then walked the course!).

Always nice when we turn on some good weather, enjoyed by 16 first timers today - a big welcome to: Henry GAJARDO RIVAS, Douglas INNES, Frank ERCEG, Grant WHOLEY, Mary LENIN, Rebecca NEWNHAM, Murray PARKER, Amy INNES, Liam WEAVER, Samantha HILL, Timothy HUO, Catherine GILBERT, Aimee FITZJOHN, Kate KAURI, James EMBURY, and Rachel DAVEY. We hope you'll all be back to join us again in the future!

Conditions were also good for PBs, with 23 new "best times" set this morning by: Bruce LAMBERT, Alastair STEPHENSON, James SHEPHERD, Ross MITCHELL, Bill WANG, Ravi BHARATHAN, Shane DEVITT, Joshua RUTTEN, Brian THOMSON, Lucy BEST, Jess CALDWELL, Colleen CUMMING, Kerry SCANNELL, Niamh O'DONNELL, Rhys SCANNELL, Amelia HAXTON, Natasha JELBERT, John ROBERTS, Elliott NAUDE, Isaac CROOK, Jing WANG, Siobhan VAN OOSTENDE, and Kiri EVANS. Congratulations to each and every one of you!

There may have been more first timers or PBs lurking amongst the 16 unknown runners who joined us this morning. Please remember to bring your barcode or, if you haven't registered yet, do so for free at https://www.parkrun.co.nz/register/ so all your future runs or walks get logged for posterity!

And with Christmas and New Years coming up, remember you can take your nifty barcode to any parkrun in the world and enjoy a Saturday 5km just like if you were at home. This time of year also brings some special events, with some parkruns putting on Christmas runs and the rare double being offered on New Years at a couple of locations too (Dunedin/Balclutha, Lower Hutt/Porirua) - you can check all those out at http://www.parkrun.co.nz/special-events/

Finally, a big thank you to the volunteers who helped make it happen this morning: Alastair WILLIS, Andrew JONES, Cate SHAVE, Daxa GOVIND, Donald COLEY, Joanna MARTIN, Joce JONES, Mark MALONE, Ross SMITH, Saul IRELAND and Toby IRELAND. Volunteer positions are still available for the last three Lower Hutt parkruns of the year, so if you haven't done three volunteer duties yet in 2018 now's your chance to fill them up - see what jobs need to be done at http://www.parkrun.co.nz/lowerhutt/futureroster/, and then get yourself signed up for one by emailing lowerhutthelpers@parkrun.com

Finally, wishing everyone a very safe and relaxing time over the holiday season, wherever you may be and whatever your plans are.

Signing out for 2018,
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Cate SHAVE (parkrunner and wanna-be-Christmas-jingle-writer)

Can you believe that we are into December already? That means an extra parkrun for the month, if you choose. This year Porirua are holding a special Xmas day parkrun, so not only can you participate on the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22th and 29th you can get a 6th dose of fun on the 25th. How cool is that, 6 parkruns in a month!! Check out http://www.parkrun.co.nz/special-events/ for a listing of all extra parkruns around NZ over the festive season, note the times as they may differ from our normal 8.00am starts.

So parkrun 349, the 1st day of summer and a welcome sight it was that it was fine overhead. I imagine it was a slight bit wet underfoot though? I say that as I actually didn't run Lower Hutt this week, instead I drove over the Remutaka's to the relatively new Greytown Woodside Trail parkrun, but as I left the Hutt it was a beautiful morning.

There were some well-travelled visitors this week, folk whose home parkruns are in England, Scotland, Australia, along with those closer to home, Porirua and Auckland. I hope you all enjoyed your trip to the Hutt. There were also 8 people who participated in a parkrun for the very first time, welcome to Elliot BELL, Conon FORD, Finn VAN LEUVEN, Nick KALIVATI, Mikaela BOWMAR, James PRESLING, Siobhan VAN OOSTENDE, and Hans LEHMANN. This is the beginning of your own parkrun story. Aside from Nick & James who have earlier registration numbers the others have registration numbers in the 5 millions, ranging from 5,131,300 - 5,178,300. So that means we are now part of the more than 5.1 million registered parkrunners throughout the world.

Every weekend worldwide there are around 1380 parkruns, with around 225,000 - 250,000 people participating and 21,000 people volunteering. There are also another 260 junior parkruns (not in NZ) with 15,000 enthusiastic kids running 2k, helped by 4,800 volunteers. That is a huge number of people out enjoying themselves every weekend. But it also shows how involved the parkrun movement is within the many communities and people's lives throughout the 20 countries where parkrun is situated.

Congratulations to Gary MAXWELL, Bruce SOMERVILLE and Lucy MELLSOP all running their 50th this morning.

Lucy is one of our younger runners (JW10) who regularly attends with her family to enjoy parkrun. Lucy has over her time run 21 PB's, and improved that PB from her first time of 55.52 to 28.14. How incredible is that. Well done Lucy, you rock.

Since I'm in a stats mode here are some more, (non official parkrun milestones, but impressive nonetheless) featuring some of our Lower Hutt runners. Lizzi ELTON-WALTERS completed her 50th different parkrun course around the world (known as a ½ Cowell) on Saturday in Greytown. So that is a total of 302 runs, 48 PB's, together with volunteering on 52 different occasions. Her parkrun journey starting way back in Cardiff on 5/11/2011. Gina FOSTER also ran her 150th parkrun in Greytown. Over the next few weeks look out for actual parkrun milestones as a number of our fellow runners are entering the 250 club.

A huge thank you to Jared BOTHWELL, Maria Jessa DE ASIS, Megan FERRY, Brent FOSTER,
Joce JONES, Andrew JONES, Walter SOMERVILLE, Rachel STEVENS, Bill TROMPETTER, Glen WARNER, Alastair WILLIS, all our volunteers this week.
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Brent FOSTER (parkrunner & statistician??)