Nice Spring weather attracted nice number of participants to parkrun. We almost broke 100 participants as 97 walkers, joggers, runners started at 9:30 after race director's "GO" signal. On the volunteering side we had the pleasure of having Tampereen Kisatoverit (TKT) helping out.

They were also promoting their own Ensilä-half marathon during the Fall. 29.9.2018 one can first run parkrun and then head to Kauppi and run an officially measured half-marathon to Ensilä, where one can enjoy swimming and Sauna. Tampere parkrun definitely recommends trying it out!

It was also a pleasure as always to meet friends coming to Tampere parkrun from abroad. It was a pleasure to meet Andrew, Kay and Jo and William with his family.

Result wise the day was also a success as Erkki Rintala is getting into a very good form before this season. New track record 17:52 seemed to come very easily.

A very special Thank You to one of our participants for the excellent blog post: Blyygi Blumsteri. It is in finnish but definitely worth google translation!

It is also starting to feel like before Christmas as parkrun Sauna is being unwrapped. It may not take too long before we can enjoy recovery Sauna almost straight from the finnish line.

Oh, almost forgot. Next week we are having a special appearance as Moomin has woken up after long Winter. Moomin will be at the parkrun start location before and after the start.

Tampere parkrun with Moomin 5.5.2018

What a day and what a nice after parkrun coffee we had at Sanna's Coffee once more. See you all soon again!

Aamuinen sää ei tuntunut erityisen houkuttelevalta, sillä vielä tovi ennen tapahtumaa vettä tuli taivaalta ja muutenkin oli kuin syksyinen keli. Mutta eipä kulunut kun hetki ja sade loppui sekä näkyi se aurinkokin heti tapahtuman jälkeen.

parkrunin ystäviä tulikin paikalle hieno määrä. Lähtöviivalle asteli 47 ja kun Rintalat sattuivat saapumaan paikalle niin vapaaehtoisiakin oli täysi kattaus muutamasta puuttuvasta vapaaehtoisesta huolimatta. Suurkiitokset Rintaloille kun jäivät kesken oman lenkkinsä auttamaan vapaaehtoisina sekä Leena Heinolle, joka oman hölkkänsä jälkeen avusti tehtävissä.

Ongelmat eivät tosin jääneet vapaaehtoisten lukumäärään, sillä viivakoodin lukija rekisteröi vain alkupään juoksijat. Tuloksia onkin sitten päivitetty sitä mukaan, kun olemme saaneet Flickr-kuvista ja osallistujilta itseltään varmistuksia. Pahoittelut osallistujille ja yritämme varmistaa ettei jatkossa tällaisia kävisi.

Edelleen kannattaa käydä oma sijoitus/aika varmistamassa tuloksista!

Tulokset #27

Paikalla oli myös melkein kansainvälistä väriä sillä Lorna Turusta oli tullut katsastamaan Tampereen parkrunin. Ehkä tästä sana kiirii myös länsirannikolle päin ja saavat myös oman tapahtumansa. Vaikka Tampere mukava paikka on käydä niin ehkä välimatka Turusta on aika pitkä joka viikko käydä. Toivottavasti kuitenkin vielä tavataan!

Kaiken kaikkiaan oli tapahtuma onnistunut ja pääsimme talven jälkeen takaisin normaalireitille. Näyttää siltä, että kevät vähitellen koittaa myös Tampere parkrunille.

Tulospuolella näkyy myös, että lenkkareita on kulutettu sillä Juha Nyyssönen teki uuden reittiennätyksen 17:57. Onnittelut! Kääntöpaikallekin hän tuli niin vauhdilla ettei hidas hämäläinen saanut hänestä kuin lenkkarin pohjat kuvattua.

Tampere parkrun #26 was special in many ways.

First of all we would like to pay our respects to Cass Castleton, the record parkrun tourist who visited us week ago. His son past away year ago to the day on the 14th. We had one of our young parkrunners wearing a t-shirt in Jordan's memory. Our thoughts are with you.

We did have something to celebrate though as two of our backbone volunteers were having their birthdays. We had a record participation as Ulla's and Johanna's friends came from all around Finland in addition to our normal parkrunners. Congratulations once more to both!

To celebrate the occasion we had cake, coffee and recovery sausages as a after parkrun treat to everybody. It was wonderful to see how everyone gathered around chatting and enjoying one of the first warm Spring days. It made the volunteers really happy to be part of this. Thank you also to Tampereen Pyrintö that provided the grill, coffee and food ware!

Not only that but we had parkrun friends coming from UK too as Arielle, Jack and Lizzi came to Tampere. It was a pleasure meeting you and we hope you enjoyed your stay in Finland and Tampere. Thank you for the reader warmers. Those will hopefully not be needed in few months but next Winter most likely. Hopefully we can pay your Medina parkrun a visit some day too!

As a topping we had record participation in nearly perfect weather. Sun was shining and weather is gradually getting warmer. It doesn't take too long for finns to run in shorts.

On a final note we would like to congratulate Paavo in the age group of 11-14. He did a remarkable run finishing in 21:04. Keep up the good work Paavo!

Hello again dear parkrunners,

There was a noteworthy thing which happened in Tampere parkrun. Cass Castleton has not only finished 289 parkruns but he is also the first person to have finished all parkrun countries now Finland included. It was great to meet and chat with you before and after the event. Oh, and we don't do it often but it was great to hear that you enjoyed the private parkrun jet taking you from Helsinki to Tampere. Thank you for the cakes also that you brought for the voluneers. We enjoyed those! Good luck on your journey to Malaysia where parkrun is starting 14-April-2018.

Next week we will have a runner with t-shirt in memory of Cass's late son who passed away exactly a year ago on the 14th. We are so sorry for your loss and are honored to participate in this!

After needing to cancel our event previous week we were a bit worried about the condition of the route this week too. In Arboretum park one would have needed either a rowing boat or skates depending on the weather to finish the route. During the week sun (yes it does show itself in Finland sometimes too) had melted most of the snow and ice from the Ratina lake front so we decided to use spare-spare route. And it turned out to be a real success among volunteers and parkrunnes. We run same out and back route three times, which meant that no matter where you were on the route you always had friendly faces (and backs) to see and hands to high five with. This is definitely a spare route to remember!

Otherwise the parkrun was again as parkrun always is: Great. Good number of volunteers (Elviira HEINO, Helena REINIKAINEN, Johanna RIIPPI, Leena HEINO, Olli STRÖM, Riikka TAIVALMÄKI, Sari HELMINEN) and 42 participants ensured that we had enjoyable morning. 5 first timers, (welcome all!) and good number of PB's (congratulations!). Juhani Yli-Marttila kept fastest pace running under 20 minutes. We most likely had our record walking time as well as Jenni Lahtinen from Ikurin Vire walked the route in 31 minutes. Congratulations to both!

And we also had our regular participant Tobias in his shorts again. We too are hoping for the weather to get warmer.

One can not go wrong with ending the story short with pictures taken in Sanna's Cafe full of parkrunners. See you next week as we are celebrating double birthday for our two backbone volunteers Johanna and Ulla.