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Clickety-Click; Lickety-Split!

T-Rex fails to disrupt Maidstone's 20th-anniversary celebration of parkrun...

As the global celebration of parkrun's 20th anniversary was held on Saturday 5 October 2024, runABC reporter Alan Newman took his clickety-click knee for a lickety-split outing at his home event in Kent – the recently renamed Maidstone River Park parkrun.

A minor meniscus tear wasn't going to prevent our roving reporter from joining 331 fellow parkrunners and 26 volunteers as they enjoyed a special fancy dress and milestones party run beside the River Medway and around an extended loop in Whatman Park on a revised course from the original that Alan had measured with a surveyor's wheel 10 years ago.

This was also to be Alan's wife Sue James' return to running after recent bowel cancer surgery. Sue had been a model student of Alan's six-week Coach to 5K training programme – see runABC's runTalk for details – and she hoped to complete her first non-stop 5K run in five months.

Alan takes up the story...

We were just about to leave home when Sue announced she had a nosebleed! Epistaxis, apparently, and very difficult to stop in Sue's case. Half an hour later the flow had finally been staunched and we set off, arriving with a few minutes to spare.

We missed the usual milestone announcements and words of encouragement from long-serving Run Director Donna Carr (magnificently dressed as Cleopatra, above). We also missed the threatening T-Rex dinosaur that could have disrupted proceedings until seen off by Fred Flintstone before the first-timers briefing – see video here!

As for the run, Alan managed a tick over 24 minutes and beat T-Rex, thankfully. Sue had to settle for a walk to halfway, and a run to the finish. Her unplanned 'negative split' 5K resulted in 38:38 – way behind her Maidstone parkrun PB of 23:14 set 11 years ago, but it's a start.

We were both pleased with our efforts and the immediate rewards of delicious cakes baked by Colin 'The Cakemaker' Field – a local charity worker who has been supporting and feeding the parkrunners of Maidstone for many years.

Although parkrun isn't a race, some people take things a little more seriously and this week's first finishers were Joseph Green (18:26) and Holly Pan (20:58 PB) while the age-graded column was headed by M65 Stephen Payne (20:25, 83.67%).

Post-parkrun brews were enjoyed at Dotty's tea room at The Museum of Kent Life, or the Little Old Toll House overlooking Allington Lock, the scenic location of the new finish for this event.

Our experience of the magnetic draw of parkrun on a Saturday morning – despite a few obstacles thrown our way – was typical of what parkrun means to the 9 million registered runners and almost 800,000 volunteers who make it all happen every week, free, for everyone, forever.          

You can register and find your local parkrun here...

Photo and video courtesy of Maidstone River Park parkrun on Facebook

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