Tampere parkrun #110 – 23.11.2019

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Today was Tampere’s 110th parkrun and my last (well, in the 55-59 age category!) Next week (God willing!) I turn SIXTY and because I will be running in Helsinki (Tokoinranta) next Saturday we celebrated my birthday at my home parkrun here in Tampere with cake today!

Sanna’s salad bar and cafe is such a lovely place to hang out after the parkrun. I almost always indulge in a warm salmon sandwich and today I also had fun handing out a sliver of walnut and coffee cake to everyone.

We were 1 person shy of 50 participating today and the weather was perfect for running at this time of year. It was dry, there was no frost or ice and while Finland is, of course, really rather light deprived at this time of year, what light we did have was really nice and the grass still looks lush and green! I loved running today ... but I’m mindful that it won’t be long before the snow is here though, and I at least will be dusting off my spikes!

Today Tampere parkrun welcomed 6 first timers (so lovely to have you join us ... I really hope to see you all again soon!) and 7 participants recorded a new PB (yours truly was NOT one of them, though today a parkrun friend ran the course with me the whole way, which felt really special. Thank you Heather!)

Especially lovely for me too was that there were two visitors from my home town of Turku ... I’m really hopeful that one day we will have a parkrun of our own and I know every little spark of interest will help fuel the parkrun flame. Keep spreading the word everyone - parkrun is fun, it’s free and it really is for everyone!

My thanks as ever to the fabulous team of volunteers who made Tampere parkrun possible this week

Nina HAIKONEN, Jyri HÄNNINEN, Leena HEINO, Tero MÄKINEN, Antti STENHÄLL, Olli STRÖM

Remember without the volunteers there is no parkrun. If you would like to help (take times, hand out tokens, scan tokens, write the report (any language!) etc etc it would be great. We can show you what to do if you haven’t volunteered in a particular role before. Please contact us via the Facebook page or send us an email to tampere@parkrun.com

Thanks again to EVERYONE for making today’s parkrun such a special one for me!

Lorna Koskela

 

Tampere parkrun #107 and our very own Heather’s 50th (2.11.2019)

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It’s always super exciting whenever someone meets a parkrun milestone ...but it’s especially wonderful when it’s one of our own.

Today Heather, one of Tampere parkrun’s wonderful volunteers, and a RD to boot, braved the not-so-wonderful All Saints’ Day weather to run her 50th parkrun. Well done Heather - lovely to see you wear the red shirt today. You’ve earned it!

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55 other participants joined Heather and ran, jogged, walked  (or intervalled) the parkrun course, alongside the grey looking lake in Tampere this morning. Ulla , (as ever), did a fantastic job as RD today, overseeing a run which was surprisingly slippy in one place and which served as a reminder to us here in the soon-to-be-frozen north that winter is closer than ever. Most of us have already switched to winter tyres on our bikes and cars, and today’s conditions reminded me at least that I will need to dust off my winter trainers (spiked runners) very soon.

Juha Simola, who’s currently learning the RD ropes, did a great job of giving the first timers’ brief this morning, welcoming 4 first timers! It is really fabulous that more and more people are finding us ...so glad you ran with us today!

One of the really great things about parkrun is that because we run the same distance and are timed over the exact same course every week (usually!)  it’s possible to measure what progress each of us has made! Most weeks we see runners improve on previous times,  and it was great to see another 5 PBs (Personal Bests) recorded today. Well done everyone!

On a personal note yours truly seems to be losing time right now. (A couple of weeks ago I blamed the puddles, today I blame the icy patch hahaha ... in reality I simply need to concentrate a bit more, stop daydreaming and put in a tiny bit more effort while I run!)

Joking aside, my personal testimony is I am so very glad I found the wonderfully welcoming community of parkrun here in Tampere and started taking part as regularly as I can possibly manage! I really look forward to participating and while it’s not at all easy to get up early on these cold, wet, dark mornings, I really do find it worth getting myself to another city week after week (and yes even worth dragging myself  out of bed early on a Saturday morning!) just to be part of parkrun!

Postrun coffee is very important to many of us!

Our regular cafe was closed today for All Saints so we met up in one of our alternative cafes, Ciao. We were so many at the postrun coffee today that we caused quite a queue ...and many of us stayed on chatting for quite a lot longer than usual, which was really lovely.

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The event today was made possible by 11 volunteers:

Ulla SERGEJEFF • Olli STRÖM • Janne-Matti KOSKINEN • Tuire KOSKINEN • Leena HEINO • Noora POROLA • Elviira HEINO • Juha SIMOLA • Lorna Stella KOSKELA • Erja HEIMONEN • Annika PALANDER - thank you all. Without you there would be no parkrun!

We meet every week on Saturdays at 9:30am. Join us next week, if you can!

If you’d like to volunteer to eg help set up/ pack up or indeed help run the parkrun (we need timekeepers and someone to distribute and scan the tokens) let us know. Your help would be very much appreciated!

Lorna KOSKELA, en route back to equally cold, dark and slippery Turku!
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