Volunteer Profile

Name – Ralph Fincher

Age – 54 (soon to be promoted into the next age-group which is actually tougher at Varsity Lakes)

Occupation – Property Valuer (but open to any retirement incentives)

Home parkrun – Varsity Lakes, Gold Coast

Number of parkruns (runner) – 139

PB time – 22:54

Number of parkruns (volunteer) – 26

Favourite volunteer role – Roving marshall and then getting back in time to hand out the finish tokens (I think the modern term is multi-skilling)

I volunteer at parkrun because – If everyone chips in to help the event runs smoothly (also it’s good to volunteer on cold winter mornings – which we do have about 3 times a year on the Gold Coast)

One thing I love about parkrun is – I come from a team sports background (with late afternoon or evening kick-offs) and always thought that runners were a bit odd (in particular, how they get up so early in the morning). Well, that thought has been thrown out the window since my first venture to parkrun back in September 2013 and the most remarkable part of my parkrun history is that I’ve managed to get out of bed before 6.15am on so many Saturday mornings (although I must confess, I only came to my first run due to a rescheduled 8.30am start to fit in with a visit from the mayor).

My most memorable parkrun moment was – After 133 parkruns, finally running under 23 minutes (thanks to a fellow runner on my shoulder for the whole time with a flash phone which yelled out the times in a welsh accent)