QParkRun: A Tale of Two Tails

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.