Human Cones, Barcode Sleuthing and Record Breaking Attendance!

I headed down to Cardiff Junior parkrun for the 9AM start for volunteers. A local school was doing a 'takeover event', and there was an incredible amount of volunteers arriving on time (this is rare, and I include myself as one of those frequently tardy volunteers!).

I was marshalling the coveted 'Cowbell' spot, with three other volunteers. Cowbell is noisy and demanding, with runners potentially coming from three different sides in two different directions at any point. Cowbell needs to be set up with a strategic cone arrangement.

Only there was one problem.

The 'Cowbell' cone bag was missing. It was later to be found behind a box in a volunteers garage, but right now the four of us were debating what to do.

One volunteer was able to borrow five cones from another part of the course, though this was still woefully inadequate. In the end, I was a 'human cone' blocking off the one part of the path runners don't need to go on. I did a very good job as a human cone. You could say I was outstanding in my field...

After all the runners had finished, a parent came over seeking help with trying to find their two juniors barcodes. Between myself and another volunteer, we were able to find the junior barcodes through a popular but unofficial parkrun mobile app. We then had to go diving through the token bucket to find the two juniors finishing tokens.

Even if we hadn't gone to these great lengths to record these two results, Cardiff Junior parkrun would still have ended up with a new course record breaking amount of finishers. 262!

The previous course record was in the low 220s. 262 was unexpected, but appreciated.