Frenchfield was somewhat parched looking as the heatwave continues but this did not deter the 261 people who ran, jogged and walked at parkrun on Saturday morning.
As ever, the volunteers were on site early to set up, litter pick, and generally get everything ready for the event of the week.
Each week we welcome visitors from around the country; among these were Caroll Pattison from Northumberland and Richard Soper from Northallerton who are ticking off different letters of the alphabet. They had chosen Penrith for their P and were looking forward to a flat course.
Local club, Eden Runners have a monthly competition, Parkrun Champs, which always sees a large number of green and blue vests and T-shirts taking part and today was the sixth event of the year.
Eden Runners were joined by a members of Keswick AC who do their Parkrun Champs at different venues and had chosen Penrith for this one. This led to some friendly rivalry and banter between the two clubs.
Parkrun loves to celebrate milestones and those achieving them included Mel Hetherington and Colin Ousby who reached 100 runs and Ross Tyson who ran his 150th parkrun.
Families are a big feature of parkrun and we grandparents do love to bring our offspring along and get them involved as early as possible.
Michael Hall was proud to be running with grandson, Jack, daughter Lucy and son-in-law, Shaun. Lucy has 53 parkruns under her belt (just one behind her father) but for Shaun, it was his first time. He felt that he should accompany Jack on his first appearance.
There are always inspirational stories behind the parkrun participants and Penrith parkrun had been chosen as part of the Tri Parkrun LEJOG for Chris Hunt from Chippenham, who was cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise funds for Alzhiemers Research UK in memory of his stepfather who died recently.
Before departing Lands End, he had run Parkrun there, Penrith was midway through the journey. He and five other cyclists will reach John O’Groats on Friday and he will run at Thurso parkrun next Saturday, hoping to beat the current record for the Tri parkrun LEJOG challenge.
Chris was responsible, with others, for establishing Chippenham’s parkrun. If you would like to find out more and sponsor Chris in this incredible feat, you can do so at https://www.justgiving.com/page/chris-hunt-for-alzheimers
Parkrun couldn’t happen without the dedicated volunteers who turn out week after week.
One of those is timekeeper, Alan Marshall who has manned the stopwatch from the first parkrun at Frenchfield.
He told me how much it has all changed with the timing now being done through the Parkrun app on his phone.
Alan is also the man with the algorithms to calculate all the scores for Eden Runners Parkrun Champs competition and is very much one of our unsung heroes. He posed very reluctantly for his photo.
If you would like to take part in Penrith parkrun, either as a runner, walker or volunteer, visit our website at https://www.parkrun.org.uk/penrith/ or come down to Frenchfield for 9am on a Saturday morning where you can be assured of a very warm welcome.
For a full list of volunteers and results, please visit https://www.parkrun.org.uk/penrith/results/latestresults/
