Back to 'normal' today - no outfits to slow us down, and a clear route to the first chicane-less corner, so no excuse for slow times. Unless you were a Barber - Paul "hangover", Laura "stitch", and Jeanette "my collar bone is broken"; ok, we'll let you off, Jeanette!
Oliver was back to his job of interviewing the ever constant flow of first timers with his usual alacrity, then Run Director Alan spent a good few minutes explaining the course (Flag and Sandcastle backwards again), before the usual announcements, with a landmark performer having forgotten to bring cake, so we would have to do with last week's leftovers!
On the course, life was pretty uneventful, with several people passing me as I slowed down in the last 2 km, and Andrew outsprinting his dad to the finish.
Cary slowed dramatically towards the finish, blaming 'Stopwatch Bingo' for his noticeable lack of effort!
Apparently 'Stopwatch Bingo' is a nerdy sort of 'collectors' thing - it's explained here:
"The idea is simple, every time you finish a parkrun, you discard the “minutes” bit of your finishing time and use the “seconds” to complete a virtual bingo card, that contains sixty numbers from 00 to 59."
Apparently Cary needs just 3 more times to complete his card, so he was deliberately slowing down in an effort to get one of them.