This being Cumbria, we encountered a year of weather in one week. Penrith parkrun 339 had been postponed from February 19 due to a plethora of storms.
Thankfully, this Saturday’s Park runners and walkers were blessed with sunshine and light winds.
The 226 finishers included 19 first timers to Penrith parkrun. There were 32 Parkrunners achieving a personal best for the course, including Mark Lamb of Keswick AC, who’s fast pace of 16:11 gained him first place.
He was followed by Eden Runners’ Harry Lancaster (16:24) and Finlay Harrison (17:41). The first three ladies over the line were Karen Bridge (21:32), Kerry Grinbergs (21:34) and Nicola King (22:25), all of Eden Runners.
Some had reached noteworthy milestones for reasons other than a podium position. Emma Marshall celebrated her 100th parkrun, and Steph Hulford, who is a regular pacer, had waited an extra week to complete her 100 at Penrith.
Ali Turnbull was celebrating her 70th birthday while at the same time initiating a fundraising challenge for Eden Parkinson’s Support Group. Liz Shackman, another regular, says that she started out with local friends at the very first event eight years ago.
Meanwhile, the whole Nicholson family from Greystoke came to take part for the very first time, and afterwards the boys confirmed that the “second lap was the best lap because you got to finish!”. Maybe they will become ‘hooked’ on parkrun too!
The Penrith event takes place at Frenchfield Sports Centre starting at 9am every Saturday and is free. You do not even need to run or jog to enjoy the Parkrun experience.
On Saturday there were also 29 volunteers, who were laying out the course, marshalling, timing and barcode scanning. See parkrun.org.uk/Penrith/ for more details if you would like to take part in any capacity.
