Penrith’s 455th parkrun at Frenchfield saw a mixture of cloud and blue skies with some sunshine after a wet few days.
The course was a little wet in places causing a small diversion by the amenity pitch to avoid wet feet.
Conditions were deceptively humid. This week 313 runners, joggers and walkers tackled the course and 34 volunteers made the event possible.
The first man home was James A Salt in 16.32 in and the first lady was Tasha Mundell in 20.35, a personal best for her at Penrith. There were 28 personal best times and 8 people doing their 1st parkrun. Well done to all.
The late May bank holiday and the start of half term saw many tourists at Frenchfield, including 73 people doing Penrith parkrun for the first time.
There were participants from Chepstow, London and many other places. Andrew Pick from Doncaster was running at Penrith for the first time. He has done 328 parkruns in 178 different locations all over the UK and Europe. He plans to do a parkrun in Canada later in the year.
This week also saw a couple of milestones. John Riley who is a member of Border Reivers Runners ran his 250th parkrun.
Heather Heron completed her 200th parkrun, 198 of which have been at Penrith. Heather says she loves parkrun and enjoys the camaraderie and community feel.
Parkrun would not take place without the volunteers. I spoke to regular volunteer Linda Walker who has been volunteering at Penrith parkrun since it started 10 years ago. She has volunteered about 180 times.
Linda says she enjoys volunteering as it gets her up and out on a Saturday morning, she enjoys seeing the full age range of participants and she likes being part of the parkrun family.
If you are interested in taking part in parkrun as a runner, jogger, walker or volunteer and having a great start to your Saturday morning, it takes place a Frenchfield at 9am every Saturday morning as well as in many other locations around the UK and abroad. www.parkrun.org.uk/Penrith
