Category Archives: Sport

Running on top of the world

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Originally published in the BBC “My Story” competition, Linda relives the emotions of organising her first charity running race – with flashbacks to her first race as a runner

The school field is an ocean of bodies, bobbing and stretching. Is this what 750 people look like? I’m as nervous as they are. More nervous. I’m the reason they are all here. The sun is shining and it is the Saturday before the London Marathon in April 2007.

Two years earlier, the High Street was closed and we were all standing in the middle of the road. My tummy was fluttering and my limbs were chilly. “I’ll start near the back of the pack as I’ve never done this before.” I told myself that no-one was looking at me in that crowd. Me, in my unfashionably baggy shorts. The smell all around of deep heat had cleared my nose and was now nauseating me. We started to squash forward in anticipation even thought nothing had happened. And then muffled words spewed out of a megaphone and we were off.

The ocean of people is lapping round me and asking me questions “Where’s the start?” “When’s the briefing?” I’m drowning! I seem to be the only fluorescent-clad official on the field and they are closing in on me. And my marshals, nervous too, are phoning me in relays to tell me they are ready out on the course. I glance at my watch and scan my plan, pages going crinkly in my sweaty hand. I need to get out to the start area. Here comes the flood of bodies, warmed up, briefed and raring to go.

“Start slow,” was my mantra. And I did. Before long there was just me and a couple of old biddies wearing running club vests and they were having a chat about their holidays. A sage marshal at the first big junction stopped the traffic for me “Well done love, keep going and you’ll get a personal best today!”

“Three, two, one, go” and the 10k runners surge past in a long stream and the 4k runners drift up to the line waiting for their start. Keen teenagers, a sea of blue race t-shirts, in the front row; unfit mums and dads, running for the cause, linger at the back.

The lady in front of me had flapping laces; she stopped to tie them and I overtook her, yay not last any-more! After about 8k I felt a bit wobbly and walked a few paces but that felt worse. The marshals all smiled and cheered me on. They knew I was one of the last and I needed encouraging. And they knew they had nearly finished their jobs and could go home soon.

I feel relief as the starts pass without incident or drama. But in less than 20 minutes the 4k runners will be finishing – are we ready? There is a bonanza of goody bags and a forest of bananas and another flight of marshals standing by ready for the tidal wave of finishers. Meanwhile, the younger children’s fun runs are rolling along on the running track. I can hear the PA system echoing around the field as the little athletes collect their prizes.

My final 500m felt good although I had to push my way past early finishers walking home. I felt tearfully euphoric as a finishing marshal urged me across the line before the clock ticked on another minute. Someone thrust a bottle of sports drink in my hand and I downed it in one.

It’s high tide on the school field again. My ocean of faces is smiling now. They are finding their friends and family, comparing their times and telling their stories. Waves of clapping are crashing all around me and I’m beginning to rise on the positive vibes. The marshals are drifting back, and I’m hugged and hand-shaken. They tell tales of grateful runners and a morning well spent. They bring back the luminous flotsam of signs and bibs, in a tangled net of red and white tape.

I’d done my first 10k. I hadn’t trained for it – I didn’t even know about training. My result was a triumph of determination over preparation. It hurt for 9.5k but I wanted to do another one. 

The runners and helpers disappear – quickly like the tide ebbing over a flat sandy beach. Six months of risk assessments and planning meetings, e-mails and talks with the aristocratic landowner to set this up: and the races were all over in a splash. It’s just two years since I’d run my first race, and today I’d organised one. I’d brought together a team of 75 to make it work – and 750 people had gone home having had a good time. I was running on top of the world!

Postscript: The Clandon Park Run (www.clandonparkrun.co.uk) is now in its 6th year and has so far raised more than £50,000 for charity. The next event is on 21st April 2012.

2012 volunteers face ban on facebook

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On the one hand the British Olympic Association says the London 2012 Olympics will be the “Twitter Games”. And on the other, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) are telling their volunteers that they should not share their experiences via social media.

The athletes have had strict guidelines for a while, but recent publication of rules for the volunteer “Games Makers” is causing a bit of a stir. Some of these rules might be justified in terms of privacy such as not taking photos of areas closed to the public. But others seem to be unenforceable nonsense – not talking about a VIP or celebrity and not disclosing breaking news about an athlete. Social networks will be humming with this sort of news, surely.

You could argue that Games Makers have a job to do and shouldn’t be working one-handed – or take their eye off the ball – in order to tweet. But many games makers are passionately excited about what they are doing and will be desperate to share a celebrity snippet, an ad lib moment, or a significant sports sight, with their friends and families. Can rules really stop them? Paul Adams predicts “that we will see tons and tons of footage leaking out from the 70,000 volunteers, and that the best footage from the Games will come from regular folks, attendees and volunteers, and not from official TV crews.” He also thinks “that by the time the 2016 Olympics rolls around, this decision will be laughable, and the enforcers of this rule will look like dinosaurs.”

i-volunteer is running dire predictions of volunteers voting with their feet at these social media rules. But as LOCOG have reportedly got a problem of managing disappointment of potential volunteers who are surplus to requirements, I doubt that they are too worried.

What do you think about the Olympics’ social media guidelines?

 

The volunteering phenomenon of the decade

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Every Saturday, about 12,000 people take part in 5km timed runs all over the UK. These events are completely free and are organised by volunteers. Yes, completely organised by volunteers! The events are called parkrun, and are the brainchild of an inspiring philanthropist who believes that it is everyone’s right to get up on a Saturday and run in a 5km timed event without paying for the pleasure.

Paul Sinton-Hewitt founded the Bushy Park run, in Teddington, with just 13 runners in 2004. In 2009 he won a Runner’s World Heroes award. This week’s Bushy Park parkrun attracted a record 1000 runners and the organisation is within sprinting distance of their millionth run. On current turnout it’s predicted to happen next weekend.

Even if you don’t run and aren’t at all interested in sport, parkruns are a shining example of what can be achieved when a group of motivated people are facilitated to make something happen. There has always been a pool of potential volunteers -runners – who collectively stood to gain from free runs. But parkrun’s runaway (!) success shows what can be achieved when a leader brings together the vision, the volunteers and a practical system that enables it to all happen. And it all happens every Saturday when armies of unskilled volunteers organise parkrun events all over the world.

Have you run in a parkrun?