Today's Acton Junior parkrun involved a game of chicken between a Greener Ealing truck collecting waste bags in Acton Park and an army of charging children. The scene was set when, after the children had been released at the start, the truck decided to drive onto one of the paths of the course.

When the Greener Ealing truck arrived at the first bin it stopped to one side, then, further along at the second, the driver decided to park diagonally across the path of the children. As the runners approached, the driver and children stared each other down. Who would yield? One of the regular volunteers, Jane, fearing an epic clash ran over to speak to the driver. It's not known what she said, but it was probably something like "those children can be terrifying. Get out of here while you still can!"

The driver took another look at the neon clad kid leading the charge and decided to take Jane's advice. He got off the path as quickly as he could, which meant going cross country onto the grass.

With that out of the way, it was a pretty normal Junior parkrun. Kash, Steph, John, Joanna, Michelle and Sevan were marshalling, with Divya on finish tokens and Chikako taking the role of VI Guide.

Kash, Alan and Sevan discovered that they were all volunteering at Acton Junior parkrun this morning, while Joanna was the Run Director for the day. There were lots of first timers, apparently encouraged by the good weather, which meant that Joanna felt that things were chaotic before the start. There were lots of questions about Junior parkrun and how it all worked.

As Sevan walked up the hill from the start with his timekeeper's stopwatch running, one of the volunteers said:

"You're timekeeping? Good luck with that! There must be around 80 children today"

"This is the first sunny day this year. Every Sunday until now has been windy or rainy or cold" - Marshal

Thankfully today wasn't one of those grim Sundays. Today was glorious... sunny and warm ☀️

A little further up the hill, the lead runner who'd passed Alan's marshal post asked Sevan "Where do I go?". Sevan pointed down the hill towards the next marshal. They must've been one of those newbies.

At the finish too some of the children had to learn about funnel and that they had to run through it, not past it. "Run through here", "no, don't stop, keep going" and "over here!" were heard over and over. In all Kash and the other barcode scanners recorded 56 times, including a few who didn't have barcodes yet and needed some last minute registration action.

It was great to see that all of the children were excited and enthusiastic today, which doesn't always happen. They must be solar powered.

Thank you so much to everyone who came along to cheer today for the amazing runners doing such an iconic achievement.

More importantly we celebrate all of the amazing goodgymmers who undertook the marathon, it is an incredible feat to start one let alone finish one and you should all be so proud of yourselves!

Bit shout-out to Bethan Critchley jumping in at Mile 12 as a supporter helping runners around the course! What a superstar you are!

I've already listed the cheer party for next year. You can sign up here who knows, if you enter the ballot for next year perhaps it'll be you we are cheering on ;)

Joanna was so excited this morning that she'd woken up as a football! QPR were visiting Acton Junior parkrun, which meant lots of children, as many as would normally take part in the summer months. After Joanna's call for help with the event, lots of GoodGymers came too. 13 of them, plus a group from parkrun Poland!

No one was really sure what to expect and it all looked quite low key until Jude, one of the QPR mascots, appeared before the warm up. Not only did they show up, but they took part along with the other warm up leaders.

All around the course, our GoodGym volunteers were hoping to catch a glimpse of Jude rushing past them, on the way to a 4 leg powered Junior parkrun record (is that allowed?!). Michelle, Chris, Florian, Alan, Pippa, Steph Ducat and Johhny were all keeping an eye our from their marshal posts. It turned out that Jude was too old to run the course as they've been the QPR mascot for over 14 years, so only Chikako as the VI Guide and Harvey as the tail walker were out on the course with the runners. In the funnel area, we had Lucy, Kash, and Sevan, while Joanna led the first timers welcome.

Everything was going to plan as the 61 participants set off around the course. Then, half way around, Harvey seemed to lose his bearings and went off track. A little later, he was back on the tail of the last runner, or so he thought. A couple more minutes passed, then Michelle ran past trying to find Harvey. The boy who'd taken a loo break and was assumed to have dropped out was back in the parkrun. Cue confusion and Harvey returning to the other tail of the field.

After possibly the longest Junior parkrun ever, 31:51 with a pit stop, QPR had arranged for some fun at the finish. Jude was high fiving runners into the funnel, managing to confuse a few of them who stopped before the finish line. Then, there were some games to play and merch to be given out too.

After parkrun, some GoodGymers were seen wearing their new blue and white scarves as everyone went for coffee to congratulate Sevan on reaching 600 good deeds and to eat Michelle's fabulous lemon drizzle cake.

One the loveliest things about helping at junior parkrun is the joy you see on (almost) all of the young runners. This morning, it was damp, there were puddles, and a bit of mud straying onto the path. Despite this, one young woman ran all the way round with a smile on her face. There are children being encouraged every step of the way by parents. And there are young people doing it all by themselves - marvelous! If you haven't helped out at junior parkrun before, give it try - be it as a marshal, giving out finish tokens, or any of the other important roles - it's a joy!

This Sunday Acton junior parkrun had six GoodGymers around the winter course: Steph, Sevan, Alan, Kash, Chikako and Joanna. Kash could swear she could have seen Michelle (and heard the Midlands accent!) but no one else noticed her and she was not on the roster.

Some ominous signs were seen in Acton Park: terns flying low, witches and snakes on trees, faces on tree trunks. Something was cooking up.

The volunteers did their best to make sure the event went well despite the strange aura in Acton. Joanna gave the first-timers a warm, cheery welcome, Alan, Sevan and Kash secured the course as marshals and did a lot of clapping to chase away any anxious ghosts of Acton, Chikako guided her VI daughter, and Steph escorted the last runner safely to the finish line. He remained calm even though a leopard tail suddenly grew out of his back!

Despite three runners dropping out, including a pram with a wonky wheel, which was clearly not a race pram, 49 youngsters successfully finished the course! Once the stampede was over, the uneasy spirits of the park returned to their slumber. The run director no longer had to offer them sacrificial biscuits, so the treats went to the volunteers!

Save the date and join us at the special event at Acton junior parkrun on 24th March, featuring Queens Park Rangers! Sign up here!