My first go at the new Oxford parkrun and, with just an easy 6 mile ride to the start at Cutteslowe Park, my first without breakfast. Not being familiar with the park I wasn’t sure where the start was and while I could see various dog walkers wearing hi-vis through the mist I couldn’t see any obvious parkrun volunteers.
Reassuringly another bloke in running shorts locked his bike to the rack next to mine and I was soon chatting with a chap who seemed to be in the know and was wondering where the parkrun banner had got to. On closer scrutiny the dog walkers had Lucozade motifs on their hi-vis and were in fact marshals.
The chap in the know recited a horror story of how the timekeeper at Abingdon last week had kept pushing the wrong button causing chaos and confusion when the results were uploaded. Surely the problem was the registration not the timekeeper says I. No it was the timekeeper kept pressing the reset he insisted. At this point, somewhat mortified, I confessed to being said timekeeper. I thought he looked a little embarrassed but not half as much as I felt.
Still no banner but, after being pointed in the right direction and given the pre-run talk, we were off. Once round a short loop marked off with plastic mushrooms then down the path past the bikes, across more grass passing the finish funnel, onto a track, down the side of a field so misty it that I couldn’t even see the football match taking place till we were almost passing it, a muddy path through woodland, then back past the bike rack for a repeat. A fun course with a variety of terrain but pretty flat.
Meanwhile an imp on my shoulder went on and on about how could I be so stupid as to have stood there last week repeatedly pressing the wrong button, there were only 2 buttons and the reset was smaller and recessed, I’d been warned not to press it. I’d seen the results list go up with hardly any names, the winner and 2nd place even were ‘unknown runner’, and Lucy’s plea for people to let her know their times and names. Not for a moment had I thought it might be my fault but no use denying it, the bloke in the know was certain. I’d have kicked myself if my legs weren’t busy elsewhere.
Almost there and with a slight downhill finish I kept pushing. The chap in front of me through the finish funnel collapsed on all fours on the wet grass. I looked at my watch and realised it might just be a PB but a matter of a few seconds so by no means certain. I chatted for 5 minutes, George, who I’d seen at Abingdon, seemed to have heard the same story about the timer. I sheepishly mentioned I’d volunteered myself for Oxford in a couple of weeks.
As soon as I got home I emailed an apology to Lucy at Abingdon, most of the results had by now had names attached but it must have been an awful lot of work behind the scenes. Later the Oxford results gave me 23:36 11/40 – a parkrun PB by 1 second on my 8th effort.
A brief email from Lucy, ‘Nik, it wasn’t you it was the barcode scanner that was the problem, someone has been pulling your leg’. On reflection of course it wasn’t me, it was the names that were missing not the times, why on earth had I let that bloke convince me he knew what he was on about! Not so much a joke as a case of Chinese whispers I think and a great relief for me as I do really hate cocking things up.