Remember it’s 7.30am, remember it’s 7.30am… parkruns at home (Perth, Western Australia) start at 8.00am, and I had nightmares about trying to chase down the Tailwalker after rocking up late! It may have been at a different time, and in a different country, but beautifully parkrun is parkrun wherever you go, with the same wonderfully warm welcome and familiarity irrespective of country, and East Coast parkrun did not disappoint!

When my sister-in-law, Jo, asked what I thought of a short 5 day stay in Singapore, my answer was “as long as one of those days is a Saturday so I can get in a parkrun”! I can’t be the only one, right?!

Judging by the ‘first timer’ flags on the results and the enthusiastic welcome of tourists, East Coast is a lover of visitors! Then came the careful selection of location, which involved a bit of cyber-stalking of Singapore’s parkrun Facebook pages, results and course pages and the all-important assessment of parkrun Challenges. I’m very glad I need an extra E for Namely and an East for Compass Club, which brought me to your wonderful event (and if you have no idea what challenges I’m talking about, do yourself a favour and download the 5K parkrunner app and head down a magical rabbit hole of primes, Fibonacci numbers and the alphabet!)

It wasn’t all smooth sailing… A close call with possible cancellations, firstly due to a lack of volunteers and secondly, when we woke early this morning there was thunder, lightning and hammering rain – with a 30-minutes of no lightning required to start the event. The weather also caused taxi issues, and after a nervous wait and our driver overshooting to Carpark 3, we got there in the end (phew!)

Event 323 had a fantastic feel from the minute we arrived, with friendly regulars and a merry band of volunteers making us feel right at home. A huge shout-out to RD Karianne who made it all look effortless, while ‘working the room’ chatting and welcoming the newbies. First Timers Welcomer Pris had her work cut out for her, with tourists almost outnumbering regulars (22 First Timers today out of a field of 56)!  She did a fantastic job with a humorous and thorough briefing (hopefully nobody got as far as Changi Airport!!)

Who doesn’t love a fast, flat out and back – even if it’s raining with a few flooded sections! It clearly didn’t bother some, with 5 new Personal Bests (woohoo, congratulations guys!!)

parkrun cannot happen without fantastic volunteers, and while everyone wants the participation tick, volunteering gives a unique perspective to parkrun and a chance to make new friends and deeper connections than you would if only running. Please take a look at the Future Roster page and put yourself forward – you’ll never look back (remember the 5K app? There are volunteer challenges too!).

Thanks to Damaris for checking the course and making sure everything was safe (albeit wet), to Stuart and Yeng Ling for helping ensure we turned around at the appropriate spot, to Jackie and Shireen as the parkwalk cheer squad, Damaris gets another high five for tailwalking, while Anna, Li Ying and Alexandra cheered everyone across the line while timing and tokening and Punam snapped everyone for posterity. Hopefully our final high-viz hero, Pranav, got everyone’s token back and they haven’t been souvenired. (Editor's comment: we can confirm, all back, safe and sound :))

Thank you to all of you (and Pris and Karianne) for putting on a fantastic event… If ever you’re in Perth, come visit Lake Joondalup parkrun, which is a very similar flat and fast out and back – we’d love to see you!

Event Report written by Michaela Miller