Parkrun Report – “The Paul Johnson Special”
All statistics have been checked against available records and verified where possible. Despite this, the information is provided ‘as is’ without any warranty.
(Is that ‘legal’ enough for you Matron?).
Yesterday (Saturday 23rd Aug 2025) marked a very special milestone for my good friend: club coach, mentor, and dare I say it ‘Striders legend’ – Mr Paul Johnson. That’s right, we celebrated his 300th attempt at beating my Parkrun personal best! (Correction by matron – Dave has clearly forgotten to take his meds – Paul has a PB of 18:06 at the Barrage in 2019 and has beaten Dave’s best on 6 occasions)
As many of you will know, I moved into the ‘Home for Bewildered Parkrunners’ as soon as the last finishers’ tokens had been scanned at the legendary Tees Barrage Parkrun. For those of you who didn’t get a chance to run the route, It included a wobbly bridge and a giant inflatable iceberg (I may have dreamt up one of those, but Grant didn’t get any footage for YouTube, so it can’t be confirmed). Anyway, before my move, I used to be darn good Data Analyst – so you can imagine my delight, when I found this laptop just lying inside a laptop bag in reception. I quickly hacked into the parkrun mainframe and got hold of all Paul’s Parkrun stats.
The journey to 300 began for Paul at the Barrage on the 3rd Oct 2015 – it was an unseasonably cold Saturday, with highs of 8 and lows of 1.2 degrees – thanks ChatGPT (Paul will definitely have known the temperature in advance, his Parkrun planning is meticulous). He was 4th home on that day with a 70%+ a/g in a time of 20:11. What a start to his Parkrun career – which went from strength to strength. He certainly kicked on and has gone on to run a sub 19 minute parkrun in each of the last 10 years! Claiming his latest sub 19, an incredible 18:40 effort at Hartlepool, with a national standard 81:61 % age grade. He really is Mr Consistent.
Although Paul is not really one for ‘Parkrun challenges’, I did notice whilst analysing his stats, that he has actually achieved one of the big ones. Congratulation my friend – ‘Stopwatch Bingo’ – where runners try to get a finish time for every second between 00 and 59. Smashed it (‘55’ -“Snakes Alive” is his most frequent second)
We know Parkrun is not actually a ‘race’, but someone has to get that number 1 token, and Paul has had that in his hands on 13 occasions at 4 different Parkruns. He also has an incredible 225 Top 10 finishes under his running belt – that’s 75% of all his attempts, across 15 venues.
He is indeed, a fantastic runner, but he is also selfless, and has been an excellent pacer for lots of club members & other Parkrunners (including me a number of times). Those who have ran with Paul at Parkrun will know that his calm encouraging comments and consistency, has resulted in shiny new PBs for runners at all paces. Some of the fastest Striders have benefitted from this: Tom Ramsey told me his Albert Parkrun PB is down to Paul’s pacing, and Abby Barker credits him for her overall Parkrun PB. That is just the tip of the inflatable iceberg – there are many more similar sentiments (Please have a read of all the lovely messages on Friday’s Facebook post if you want to be reminded of what an amazing impression this guy has made on the Striders community).
Apart from his brilliant coaching and mentoring – we all appreciate the time and effort that goes into his Weekend reports, and look forward to them landing. If Paul could smuggle me in a laptop on one of his visits, then maybe I could help him with the stats too….
[This is matron – I have taken my laptop back off Dave, and walked him to his room. Parkrun HQ have also managed to thwart his attempt to reinstate the Tees Barrage. He has subsequently been banned from this afternoons Bingo by way of a punishment]
You kept this one quiet, didn’t you Mr F. Thanks mate. It brought back memories of the barrage. If I’m not mistaken the giant inflatable iceberg often appeared on the Tees next to ‘Joe Biden’ bridge. (Joe himself would sometimes be standing there, surrounded by bodyguards, smiling and waving to the parkrunners, with a slightly glazed look in his eyes). Whilst I appreciate all the statistics involved in this write-up, there is a glaring innaccuracy. I’ve checked my pre-run notes and the maximum temperature for my first parkrun was 9 degrees – not 8. Spoilt what was an otherwise tidy write-up.