I am part of the parkrun family!
It’s an international family and one that I LOVE being a part of.
Specifically I am part of the Bracknell parkrun family and on a Saturday morning I can usually be found at Great Hollands Recreation ground either having a little three lap jaunt around the park or (and more often) at my favourite marshalling point at the bottom of the hill yelling and cheering encouragement to those who have made the effort to get out of bed and run, walk or jog the 5k route.
If you have not heard of parkrun then you are missing out – let me tell you a bit about it. parkrun is for EVERYONE it’s a free timed 5k run held all over the world and at 364 locations across the UK – since it began 815,559 parkrunners have completed 8,479,859 runs in the UK covering a distance of 42,399,295km – I’M PART OF THAT!!
It’s the inclusive nature of parkrun that I love the most which is reinforced EVERY week by the new people that come along and join the family and the personal growth that I am lucky enough to be witness to.
This week I was excited to witness one of our family (Joan Barker) run here 13th PB out of 16 Park runs which was also her 10th in a row. Joan’s first parkrun was on 18th April 2015 when she complete the course in 52:34. This weekend she set a new PB of 36.30 – that’s over 16 minutes improvement in 16 runs! Joan was lucky enough to run her first park run when I was marshalling (!!) and says she clearly remembers the encouragement on offer as she pushed herself around each lap.
I think it’s a good thing but I am renowned for being heard before I’m seen when I’m at my favourite marshalling point in the woods!
One of our newer Parkrunners at Bracknell is Charlotte Davies who also set herself a MASSIVE PB at Great Hollands Rec on Saturday – Charlotte’s first park run was on September 19th this year in a time of 53.05 – this weekend on her fourth park run outing she took her time down to 49.32 clocking her first sub 50 time, more that three minutes off in four runs!
So the purpose of this post is to tell you that Parkrun really is for EVERYONE – I can talk to you about our course records and our faster Parkrunners but I don’t think they are necessarily the ones that need the encouragement to get out of bed on a Saturday morning and come and give it a go.
So if you think you might want to run, or jog or walk on a Saturday morning – please come along and see us – if not a Bracknell then at your local parkrun – I can guarantee you a warm and friendly welcome and once you’ve completed the course there is no other feeling quite like it.
Find your local parkrun and register for your barcode here
Happy Parkrunning people
PS I set a Course PB by 29 seconds this week as well 🙂
