30/08/2026
Run Report Event500, August 29th 2026.
Wow, Wow, WOW‼️
The parkrun deities were listening.
Both our ED & the RD for this Event had decided [quite naturally] on a theme of BLUE for Event500 & even the sky complied with a cobalt blue sky greeting our parkrunners, parkwalkers, buggyriders and barkmates, Smurfs appeared as if by magic, blue costumes of all description abounded and "less loud" blueness was on display as well as those who got the wrong memo - a full yellow outfit would've been great last week at our Daffodil Day event 😜.
It was great to have athletes from both Achilles and Speed Freaks in particular, but everyone is welcome at Pegasus parkrun.
I was going to let the RD write up this report but that was vetoed by our ED with concerns about possible overuse of terms relating to Smurfiness 🤣.
What a wonderful sight we presented on the grass - gazebos with offerings from The Athletes Foot, Nixad Facepainting, Waikuku Surf Lifesaving Club, Snap Fitness and New World Ravenswood, flags flying from MegaMitre10 Rangiora, Doctor Bike & of course our own parkrun flags.
Darren and Blair provided a great First Timers Welcome to our 20 absolute First Timers and 32 First Time Visitors and almost immediately after everyone was called to the start line by our Special Guest RD, 542yr old Papa Smurf. He welcomed all, explained parkrun rules, discussed the (Out&Back) course & only needed a couple of prompts about what had to be said to our 403 finishers, before handing over to our dual TimeLords - to set everyone off. What a fantastic sight it was, check out the photos on the book of faces.
Somehow with such a large field, there were 59 parkmates who earned themselves a shiny new red PB for completing our course quicker than ever before, congratulations to you all, particularly so to Blair McConnell who with excellent VI Guidance from both Darren de Groot and Jonathan Scott snagged himself an impressive PB.
On our not-podium positions we had, standing tall for the top 3 males [& overall first three finishers] Daniel Wordsworth, Luke Mansell & Nathan Heaver - great effort you blokes.
The Blokettes were brought to our finish funnel by Francesca Williamson, Anna Schroeder & Myla Clarke van Notten.
The Juniors were headed up by Daniel (yep, again), Cameron White and Myla.
Again some great efforts there 👏.
We had some Milestones and SteppingStones to celebrate as well - R25, Joel McLachlan, Casey Bridgford and Raewyn Hammond.
R150, Ronen Sharvit and Dale Wilhelm.
V50, Jonathan Scott.
Well done all of you ‼️
While we were waiting for Rosie to bring the field home, sausages were eaten 😋, lolly packages were given 😀, lollipops went to whoever wanted them (these are kindly donated by Karyn and Robert Templer) the SnapFitness and TAF tents had a regular stream of visitors and Nixad Facepainting created their own magic with the designs put on the small number of customers they had.
There will be more, a separate post, on the incredible generosity of the fantastic businesses that helped make our E500 so special.
The vibe of this Event was incredible, everyone was buzzing, everyone had a great time - especially those who took advantage of our classically comical photoboard especially made for this Event by Horton Signs [but we will make use of it again and again]
A huge thank you to our hardworking, incredible group of Volunteers who simply did not stop.
And so, on to the prize-giving, a couple of glitches to deal with, a number of people who didn't stay but eventually all given out. The gear got packed up & taken by next weeks RD and off to a packed Sunshine Cafe for the regular post parkrun banter, parkfaff and general discussions.
Until next week, then.
Thanks to Everyone involved.
Geoff
