Penrith’s 537th parkrun took place on Christmas Day morning.
The weather was festively cold, mostly clear with some cloud. The 417 jolly participants chose to have an active start to their Christmas celebrations which may have included a very large and delicious Christmas dinner, it certainly did in my case!
Many were in festive fancy dress including a light up star, a turkey, a very speedy reindeer, multiple Santas and a handful of elves.
There were 30 cheerful volunteers who made the event possible.
The first of this impressive turnout to cross the finish line was Charlie Kemp in 17.47 with a new PB, with Luka Labram 2nd in 18.06 and Samuel Pullan 3rd in 18.10 which was also a new PB.
The first woman was Alex Mundell in 18.44, 2nd was Jenny Evans in 19.22 and 3rd was Tash Mundell in 19.55. Alex and Tash are sisters, so a good day for the Mundell family!
We were honoured to have visitors from all over the UK and the globe including Holland and Australia tackling our 5km course.
Make a Wish were at Penrith parkrun raising funds. They are a national charity that raises money for terminally ill children to go on trips such as Disneyland with their families – a very worthy cause!
There were several first time parkrunners including Chris Fisher who volunteered as a tail walker.
Chris lives in Kendal and has been diagnosed with MND. One of her daughters lives in Penrith and runs herself, who encouraged Chris to try walking parkrun. A huge well done to Chris. We hope you enjoyed the experience.
There were several milestones: Impressively Andrew Richardson who is a stalwart volunteer at Penrith and known for his entertaining briefings has volunteered 475 times.
Thank you Andrew for all your time and effort over the years. It was pacer team organiser, Phil Cooper’s 50th birthday on Christmas Eve – Happy birthday to Phil.
Maxine Graham ran her 30th parkrun, after only starting to run when she was 60. Kath Savage completed her 100th parkrun on this Christmas morning.
Steve Farthing reached his 250 milestone while Jamie Jephcott has completed an impressive 300 parkruns. Well done to all.
t was an excellent turnout with 98 more participants than Christmas day last year – what a great start to Christmas Day!
If you would like to join the Parkrun community as a runner, walker or a volunteer, Penrith parkrun takes place at Frenchfield at 9am every Saturday and many other places around the UK and internationally.
There will also be many parkruns on New Year’s Day at 9am including one at Penrith.
For a full list of participants, results and volunteers, visit https://www.parkrun.org.uk/penrith/results/latestresults/
