There were a lot of children at Acton Junior parkrun this morning. It was a surprise to most people, including the Run Director, who hadn't planned for it. Only one of the regulars told Sevan:

"I forgot when the school were coming" 🤫

Yep, a school had encouraged their students to come along today and it had doubled the usual number of runners. Acton Juniors had gained 60 extra participants. Most GoodGymers reported that it was either "busy" or "chaos" with Maria reporting lots of corner cutters, Steph's high fiving hands were working overtime and in the funnel, children and parents were backing up as Sevan tried to scan all of their barcodes. Chaos reigned until reinforcements were put in place.

Kash was tail walking on her 100th parkrun volunteer and to her, everything was pretty normal. The extra numbers didn't make any difference to what was happening at the back of the field.

It took longer than usual to wrap everything up. Most of the new children looked to have a good experience and with any luck will become regulars in the coming weeks and months.

Today's Acton Junior parkrun was full of changes as usual. Before the start, there were lots of swaps being discussed, with a few of the GoodGymers wishing that that could take someone else's role. Harvey could have done without the pressure of time keeping and Maria, who was tail walking, wasn't in the mood for grumpy or crying children today.

Kash and Sevan were pretty content marshalling, along with Hassan who was up bright and early for his first good deed. Hassan had joined for a social run earlier in the year and was back today to help the Junior parkrun run smoothly. Welcome to GoodGym! 👏🥳. Finally, Joanna was cool as a cucumber, time keeping alongside Harvey, trying to ease the pressure.

The main drama was a Greener Ealing van that decided to invade the course and was moved on by the Run Director just in time for the runners to get going. The driver said that they were in the park every Sunday morning, so they should already have known to stay out of the way. Even Maria had a quiet time today as all of the children were happy to be running around the course, from the front of the field to the back.

There were lots of new things going on at Acton Junior parkrun this morning. There was a new (to GoodGym) run director, a lot of first time runners and GoodGymers running the warm up with Maria leading it alongside Kash and Chris.

Around the course, Alan was marshalling and Steph wore the leopard tail and orange vest as the tail walker. Most other GoodGymers were in the funnel. Maria double-roled, also funnel managing, with Chris recording times and Kash and Sevan making up the barcode scanning team.

The real excitement was far from Steph, with the leading runner finishing in 7 minutes flat on the hilly course 😲. They were so far in front that there was a 95 second gap back to the first boy to finish. Some parents weren't as impressed with their children, leading to those adults making childish comments like:

"[She] didn't pull her trousers up in time at the start, so she deserves to finish 39th" - Childish parent

A lot of the chat before Acton Junior parkrun this morning was around the Winter Olympics. Who's seen the opening ceremony? Who'd been firing themselves down an ice flume on a tea tray at 120kmph? Who had the most impressive or least practical outfits at the opening ceremony? Had the GoodGym team been in training for today's parkrun?

"Timekeepers, are you ready?" - Run Director
"Yes, my thumbs are ready."
"They've been in training."
"They're at peak performance, ready to record times!" - Sevan

The rest of the team were ready too, with gold standard marshalling by Maria, Harvey, Chris and Steph. Lightening fast barcode scanning by Joanna... and dependably slow tail walking by Kash.

There weren't any 120kmph performances today and thankfully no ice either, so the 61 finishers made it safely around the track. The first finisher recorded a more sedate, yet still impressive 14.52kmph (or 8:15).

Acton Junior parkrun this morning coincided with Harvey's task to donate old running shoes to Jog On. It resulted in a great haul of well worn trainers which will be saved from landfill. A lot of the runners must've been wearing speedy new shoes then, with the first runner finishing in a PB of 7:41 on the hilly course.

Unusually, no GoodGymers were volunteering in the funnel. A marshal shortage meant that Harvey, Joanna, Tom, Steph, Maria, Kash and Sevan were dotted around the marshal point on the course.

"Is there a marathon on today?" - Park goer

There was no marathon. Instead, a 2km run completed by 53 brilliant children.

Acton Junior parkrun's roster was overflowing with volunteers today. So much so that there were 5 (yup, five!) tail walkers who included Kash. She was disappointed that today's Run Director, Joanna, didn't assign her the orange tail walker hi-vis with the leopard's tail. Maybe next time...

Most of the ice around the course had melted by the time the runners got going, so the black ice warning cones, placed during the course check, were redundant. They looked like they were randomly placed for the children to slalom through and dance around. They left marshals Steph and Sevan a bit confused too.

There were more confused people on the course too as 3 adult men showed up after the start and asked if they were late for the start of today's parkrun. They may have been young at heart, but Sevan explained that today's event was for children only and they should head to Gunnersbury Park next Saturday. Not counting the 3 men, 45 other young hearts enjoyed today's free, organised parkrun, whizzing past Harvey who recorded their times and Alan who dished out finish tokens to the happy finishers.