After a decidedly soggy week, it was delightful to finally see a hint of sunshine and a dry morning at the Frenchfield site in Penrith.
As ever the volunteers had arrived early to get set up, check the route, and complete the litter pick and were ready with a warm and cheerful greeting by the time the majority arrived.
This week there were 33 volunteers making it all happen for the 244 participants who walked, jogged, and ran around the two-lap route.
Of those running, Ellie Debenham was the first female home in 20:54 and set a PB at Penrith, the first male home was a regular in that position, Harry Lancaster in a time of 15:52.
Penrith had the usual mix of visitors this week with people coming from Harlow and Cambridge.
Rosemary Finn who completed her first Penrith run today was visiting from Durham with a group of her family. She was taking part with her nephew Martin, they were staying locally to celebrate Rosemary’s 60th birthday later in the month.
One of the regular Penrith runners Drew Lewis was also celebrating his birthday, in this case, his 13th and he made his way around the course with some balloons, one of which survived the experience!
One of the younger visitors today was Finlay Russo, in Penrith with his family members, Olivia, Lewis, Lauren and Graeme, they had met up for a holiday so that those from both Forfar in Scotland and Conwy in Wales could get together.
Finlay admitted he quite liked running but would have preferred to be up a Munro – well he could certainly take on a Lake District fell instead this weekend!
His family run with JogForfar which encourages people to take part in running. This week research from the Netherlands suggested that running with other people in a group can be exceptionally good for both physical and mental health and certainly parkrun offers that opportunity.
We know that many people make friends or join running clubs and groups as part of their parkrun journey.
The research suggested that running twice a week with people could have real benefits, so why not make parkrun one of those? And if you don’t want to jog, run or walk – then come along and volunteer – it is a brilliant way to see friendly smiley faces each week who greatly appreciate the volunteer support. It wouldn’t happen without them!
