Even though it was very hot this past Saturday, our beautiful wooded portion of the course is always a few degrees cooler, and shaded from the sun’s rays. Many of our newest parkrunners remarked on what a splendid course we have. And since the woods have gotten a chance to dry up recently, everyone except our Tough Mudders ™ now loves the woods.

      We embraced 13 first timers this week, 11 of which were brand new to parkrun. Welcome to Michael, Adam, Brian, Emily, Alexander, Steven, Alan, Fineas, Shaun, Alexander, and Natasha, all brand new. And welcome Cynthia most recently from Jamaica Pond parkrun in Boston, and to Janet, originally from Michigan, now living in the U.K. from Huntingdon parkrun. Janet brought her parents along and her Dad Mark volunteered to be our photographer. Thank you so much! Many of the photos in this run report were taken by Mark.     Here is Janet next to a certain parkrunmobile.      

 

And here she is out on the course

 

    In addition to Janet's father Mark’s volunteer efforts we had what might be a record nine new volunteers. Thank you all! All these new volunteers might have had something to do with the parkrun World Cup we are currently competing in. But getting people involved, encouraging brand new people to start volunteering right away, leads to stronger community bonds, and a more sustainable parkrun.   Here’s to all our volunteers this week: Sam BAILO, Lynn BOVEN, Dan BOYER, Steve DANCY, Tim GALLAGHER, Spencer GREVE, Mark GRUDZIEN, Janet GRUDZIEN JOHN, Bruce HYDE, Tim KEER, Emily KINGSBURY, Kenneth LESCELIUS, Brian MARX, David NOWELL, Michael NOWELL, Emma NOWELL, John TARKOWSKI, Donald THEODORE, Alan WATSON.     Here are Brian and Alan with Bruce helping pre-parkrun.     .

Wouldn’t you love to join this group as well? Just send an email to livoniahelpers@parkrun.com It is easy and fun to volunteer. We are missing key volunteers the next three weeks. And we have several open positions. This is your parkrun. There is no parkrun without volunteers. Please sign up.

 

In reverse tourist news, where our Livonia family goes out and spreads the good news, we had Bhuvi, Raghu, and Tim Keer visiting Jamaica Pond parkrun in Boston. We had Thomas Priess adding to his parkrun USA record with his 57th first finish coming in 1st in his 1st non-Livonia parkrun in Mansfield, Ohio. We also watched the Styron Five enjoying their vacation by visiting the Charleston, West Virginia parkrun this week, where Josh, Adam, and Henry were the first three finishers.

 

  We had a baby stroller drag race this week. Here they are giving everyone else a head start, while they warmed up in the pits.  

 

And here they are out on the course, with Fashionista Baby ahead of Bowl of Cereal Baby by three lengths.

 

  We did not have any official t-shirt milestones this week. But we did have Bruce Hyde running his 200th parkrun, all in Livonia, congratulations Bruce! Here is Bruce with friend and fellow volunteer Ken Lescelius.  

 

In addition to Bruce we had Don Theodore not far behind running his 180th parkrun. Tim Gallagher ran his 140th. Charlotte Burke did her 75th. Ray Walsh ran his 70th. Virginia Gerstner ran her 40th. And Guy Bardsley completed his 25th. Congrats to everyone on your achievement for dedication. Now for the first finishers. We had Shawn Howse back in the house. After an almost three year absence, Shawn Howse returned and once again took it to the house. Shawn has come to Livonia parkrun 7 times, and been first finisher all 7 times. This makes 24 times one of the 3 Howse brothers have been first finisher with Tim’s 15 and Scott’s 2 added to Shawn’s 7. In 2nd and 3rd were Steve Johnson and Jeff Everett. And our 4th finisher, John Tarkowski posted the highest age grade of the week at 76% of world record pace.

 

Now for the ladies. Last week’s 3rd finisher was first timer Katie Kim. She had so much fun she came back again this week to be a 2nd timer, and was our first finisher. Previously mentioned tourist Cynthia Lin was our 2nd finisher, and junior parkrunner Grace Kim, Katie’s sister, finished in 3rd position on her 3rd parkrun.

 

  In other parkrun news, Livonia parkrun is excited by our back to back victories in the parkrun World Cup, modeled after the Soccer World Cup, and run by our very own Tim Keer. We score points for certain achievements so if you qualify for one of the following achievements please make extra effort to come this Saturday, July 7th as we are in the semi-finals against Mountain Goat Trail parkrun.   Here is what all the other parkruns are going to see as they eat our dust in the parkrun World Cup!

Attendance – Everyone counts, please come one and all!
New Volunteers – If you have never volunteered before, this is your chance to make your effort count double!
Milestone shirts earned – Please come and run Karen Slayton! If anyone knows junior parkrunners James Walby, Julia Sonen, Padraig O’Donohue, or Sophia Licari this is the week to bring them with you.
Age Diversity – Bring all the kids, and you wily veterans please come too
Speed Diversity – If you are fast run as fast as you can, everyone else, let’s go in s-l-o-w motion. Unless: PB’s – If you think you can get a PB, then run like the wind.
2nd Timers – If you know anyone who has been to Livonia parkrun exactly once, drag them with you at all costs.
Course Records and Age Group records – These are tough to do, but if you can do it, this is the week!

We completed our 10,000th Livonia parkrun last Saturday. We are up to 10,055 now with our 59 finishers. We have had 2,012 different people complete a Livonia parkrun, so that works out to almost exactly an average of 5 Livonia parkruns by everyone who has ever done a Livonia parkrun. The vast majority of these folks have done one Livonia parkrun never to return (so far), balanced out by those of us who have done  dozens, or even hundreds (two people so far with multiple hundreds) of Livonia parkruns.

We welcomed seven first timers brand new to parkrun who we hope are not one and done. A warm welcome to Narasimha, Jeffery, Zachary, Daniel, Anne-Marie, Colette, and Eric. Then we had Rob Scanlan doing his 2nd ever parkrun after his 1st was at Peter Pan parkrun near Hull in the Middle East of England. Could we all do the Peter Pan parkrun as a way to stay young?  Here is Tim Keer answering the age old question:  Do you know the way to San Jose?

Brendan Luneman was our final 1st timer, having done 19 other parkruns back in Australia. He is here working with his partner Rob Carstairs, who also ran with us back in January.  Rob is in black while Brendan is in blue.

 

We also welcomed John Pugh who has done 206 parkruns in 8 different countries, back to do his 2nd Livonia parkrun.

Our parkrun is made possible through the efforts of our volunteers. We had 17 volunteers each doing their part, and when you add all their efforts together, they put on a terrific experience for our runners and walkers. We have some of our key leadership volunteers off on vacation the next few weeks, so we could use some additional help starting June 23rd. Please send an email to Livoniahelpers@parkrun.com if you can help. Any position you would like we will make available, and we would be thrilled to hear from you.

This week’s selfless souls were: Thomas BARYLSKI, Lynn BOVEN, Heather CROSSLEY, Tim GALLAGHER, Spencer GREVE, Bruce HYDE, Ryan KEBERLY, Tim KEER, Kenneth LESCELIUS, Scott MAXWELL, Maura MAY, Marty POVIRK, Joshua STYRON, Elena STYRON, John TARKOWSKI, Donald THEODORE, and Chris WALKER. Thank you one and all!

In milestone news we had one official milestone, congrats to Tom Budd on your 50th parkrun. Tom lives right next to Bicentennial Park, and started with us back in 2012 on Livonia parkrun #7. The biggest milestone number of the week ending in 0 or 5 belongs to Kim Zamora who ran her 175th parkrun. After that we go all the way to Mark Maisonneuve with 35. Patrick Starr ran his 30th. Then we have a triple Styron with Adam running his 30th, Josh his 25th, and Henry his 20th. Australian visitor Brendan Luneman as mentioned above ran his 20th as well.

On to our first finishers, Josh Styron earned his own birthday present with his 4th Livonia first finish and 5th overall. In 2nd was another Styron friend, Luke Mercer. In 3rd and 4th place, what do you know, more Styrons. Henry got 3rd while Adam sandbagged a little so he could claim the title of 10,000th Livonia parkrun in 4th position.

For the ladies, it was veteran parkrunner Charlotte Burke with her 19th first finish good for 16th place on the overall parkrun USA list. In 2nd was 2nd timer Emily Rowland. In 3rd was transplant Sarah Lepschy.

In other parkrun news, we are saying goodbye this Saturday to friend and fellow parkrunner Theresa Tonev, who is moving to Texas.  Good luck Theresa, we will miss you!      

We also encourage you to tell your friends and relatives about the practice parkruns happening at Lille Park 8 a.m. Saturdays in Ann Arbor. And we launched our 23rd parkrun in the USA at Des Moines Creek in Washington State. Hope your parkrun was terrific, don’t forget to volunteer if you can, and see you on Saturday!

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dearLivoniaparkrunandparkrunUSA… happy birthday to us. It has been a marvelous six years. Thank you to all 100 participants and 20 volunteers who came out last Saturday to enjoy our beautiful park, get some exercise, see old friends, and meet new friends.

We welcomed back about a dozen kids and their parents from Woodcreek Elementary Run Club, formerly led by parkrun uber-runner Charlie Garnett, now lead by Dawn Smith. We also had our biggest attendance from the local Tuesday running group, the Farmington Brew Club Run Club, with 7 people coming to check us out, after repeated encouragement over the years. FBC enjoyed it so much they plan to do an entire FBC at parkrun event coming up at a TBD date maybe in July.

We had a great showing of 20 volunteers helping to make everyone’s parkrun enjoyable and fun. Thank you to everyone who brought treats to share at our celebration. We love our volunteers, and hope those of you who have not volunteered or have not volunteered lately to please give it a try. We have a good set of volunteers for June 9, but June 16 and June 23 are wide open. You can send an email to Livoniahelpers@parkrun.com and we would be thrilled to hear from you.

This week’s superstars were: Sam BAILO, Lynn BOVEN, Tracey COHEN, Tim GALLAGHER, Charles GARNETT, Beth GILDAY, Michael GOLOMBEK, Spencer GREVE, Jennifer GREVE, Bruce HYDE, Tim KEER, Marty POVIRK, Thomas PREISS, Joshua STYRON, Raghu T, Donald THEODORE, Sachiko TSUBOUCHI, Yuma TSUBOUCHI, Winnie WONG, and Kim ZAMORA. Thank you one and all!

We had 25 first timers new to parkrun, and four tourists new to Livonia parkrun. Our 1st time tourists were Luke Woodend who runs for Claremont (not Clermont) run club in England, Hendrik Meiring and his son Chris and daughter Amelie who accompanied 2nd timer Maritza Meiring. They live in Troy having moved recently from South Africa. Also Rian Hart joining us from Leakin Park parkrun in Baltimore. Welcome everyone!

Sadly two planned tourists and volunteers, Martin and Lin Lascelles, from England, arrived late, thinking we were starting at 9 a.m. instead of having our first 8 a.m. start of the year. Hope you still had fun at our birthday party Martin and Lin! Thank you to Kim Zamora for bringing the delicious chocolate milk.

We had a bunch of wonderful milestones to celebrate including Sam Bailo parkrunning for his 200th occasion, wow, only the 2nd person have run 200 USA parkruns (after Lynn of course). We had one official t-shirt milestone, congratulations to Marty Povirk on your 50th run! Other round numbers include former South African Maritza Meiring running her 90th parkrun, Mike Kakos ran his 85th, Kathleen Lomako and Tim Keer both ran their 60th. We had three people running their 40th congrats to Annie Potocki, Kathy Hall, and Ken Lescelius. Hendrik Meiring did his 30th. George Kasdorf and Scott Howse did their 20th (Scott was our 100th runner on the day, also coming late thinking it was a 9 a.m. start) And then Tim and Jeri Keer let their daughter Emma grow up too fast. Emma started as a junior parkrunner, and just completed her 10th parkrun which would have been good for a Junior 10 shirt except she already turned 18.
Another picture of Lynn and Cooper, because they are so cute together.

On to our first finishers, another parkrun USA record was broken as Thomas Preiss finished first for a record breaking 55th time. Timothy Howse, unlike his brother Scott, knew we started at 8 a.m. and finished 2nd. Adam Styron rounded out the top 3. For the ladies, it was first timer and friend from FBC run club, Sarah Daly, who dominated the women’s field earning her first first finish on her first parkun. In 2nd was youngster Ciel Zhong finishing 2nd on her 2nd parkrun. In 3rd place was veteran parkrunner Charlotte Burke.

In other parkrun news, we had much success at the booth we set up for parkrun at the Dexter to Ann Arbor Race Expo, where we highlighted both Livonia parkrun and the movement to bring parkrun to Ann Arbor.

Hope your parkrun was terrific, don’t forget to volunteer if you can, and see you on Saturday!

Those old enough to remember the Buick Electra 225 will understand the subject of this week’s run report. The Buick Electra 225 of the 1970’s was a sleek, long body, powerful, fast, muscle car sedan. The nickname of this rocket was the Deuce and a Quarter, given the 225 moniker. Now at Livonia parkrun we have our own sleek, powerful, fast, muscular Deuce and a Quarter. That would be Lynn Boven who this past Saturday set the record again for most USA parkruns with his two hundred and twenty fifth parkrun or 225, Deuce and a Quarter.  Congrats Lynn!

Now onto the rest of the story. We had our Cinco de Mayo celebration with Mexican treats, bottled water, sombreros, and Mexican pesos. We welcomed nine first timers including Rob Dray and his son Leo. Rob is visiting from England where is Lincoln is his home parkrun. Leo did a superb job volunteering as our finish token round-up person. Also joining us for the first time was Debbie Angell who is hoping to start a parkrun in Oxford, Michigan. Then we had Ron, Sherry, Laura, Dick, Emily, Nelliyan, and Allison. Welcome everyone and we hope you will return.
This run report would be remiss without a mention of the conditions out on the course. During the pre-run briefing the question was asked to Steve Dancy, “How are the trails?” His answer was “Muddy and Wet”. And I am thinking to myself, okay muddy and wet, we can deal with that. Off you go parkrunners. Little did we know when we entered the trails we would have to run right through Bicentennial Lake and its sister lakes about five times to get through the trail. The water was so deep we almost lost Sam Bailo’s little dog Max. As you can see below Max was half submerged during his barkrun.

In addition to Lynn’s big milestone of 225 parkruns, we had some other notable accomplishments. Chris Walker completed his 100th Livonia parkrun and 131 parkruns overall. We celebrated Bruce Hyde's 70th birthday. Tom Kakos ran his 70th parkrun, while our ginger parkrunner, Nick Schulz, completed his 15th.

Thank you so much to all of our volunteers. Volunteers make the world go ‘round! Here are this week’s selfless actors: Sam BAILO, Thomas BARYLSKI, Lynn BOVEN, Charlotte BURKE, Steve DANCY, Leo DRAY, Brookln FHYRE, Tim GALLAGHER, Spencer GREVE, Tim KEER, Marty POVIRK, Storm RYLEE, Mari SENKO, Adam STYRON, and Winnie WONG.

This coming Saturday we have a nice set of volunteers pre-volunteered, which makes the Volunteer Coordinator very happy . We do have two school groups coming in the next few weeks so we will need extra volunteers on both May 19th for Isbister School, and then for our 6th birthday celebration on June 2nd we have Wood Creek school coming.

As far as our first finishers go this week we had Steve Johnson with his 6th first finish and his first since his previous streak of five first finishes all in a row. In 2nd for the men was Josh Styron, followed by the Styron’s ward, Carter Caris, in 3rd (actually Henry’s friend).

For the ladies we had our Ann Arbor parkrun pioneer Stephanie Evans finishing first for also coincidentally the 6th time. There was a real three-way battle for the top three ladies as they were within a few feet of each other with less than a mile to go. Coming out in 2nd was first timer Allison Rodzik, with Cassandra Ward picking up 3rd.

In other parkrun USA news we broke our USA attendance record again with over 900 parkrunners across the 21 USA parkruns for the first time ever. We also welcomed the brand new Charleston, West Virginia parkrun to the family. Closer to home, Stephanie Evans is staring some practice runs out in Ann Arbor, hoping to launch an Ann Arbor parkrun this summer. To find out more go to the Let’s Bring parkrun to Ann Arbor Facebook page.

Don’t forget our 6th birthday of Livonia parkun on June 2nd, also our first 8 a.m. start time. We want everybody to come out so we can set a record topping our previous high of 130.   And don't forget we go to Biggby for coffee and conversation after every parkrun.  Happy parkrunning!