It was still dark when the faithful volunteers, without whom Parkrun wouldn’t happen, started to gather at Frenchfield to prepare the way for 160 people to run, jog and walk the 5k course.
This involves unrolling hundreds of metres of tape and laying out cones to mark the route, counting tokens to see that all are present as sometimes some go missing, testing the PA system, salting icy roads and allocating tasks to the helpers as they turn up.
Today we had a new volunteer join our band. Ann Lanigan, a keen open water swimmer and former runner sometimes goes to support a friend in the Midlands who does Parkrun and she decided it was time to give marshalling a go.
It gives her a reason to get out of bed on a Saturday, and who, knows, she may eventually do Parkrun herself, perhaps starting off as a tail walker. Welcome to the Parkrun family, Ann!
Our start was a little delayed due to a last minute adjustment to the course, to take runners off a stretch of track which was very icy and posed a potential risk. Again, this is where we require our volunteers to step up and we are fortunate that we can rely upon them to do just that.
We had six people completing their first ever Parkrun – what a great way to start the new year, and four visitors running at Frenchfield for the first time.
Fifteen clubs were represented including one called Gnome Your Limits, a member of which, Ross Parkinson, came in fourth with a new PB.
We had runners from as far afield as Andover and Daventry and a member of the Walking at Parkrun Club, so if any of you are thinking of giving it a go, why not look into that club or our local running club, Eden Runners which has lots of activities suitable for all.
A full list of results can be found at https://www.parkrun.org.uk/penrith/results/weeklyresults/?runSeqNumber=333
