I ran my first parkrun today, at the invitation of my friend Paul. Every Saturday up to a couple of hundred people do a brisk 5km run in Richmond Park (there are many locations – check this page for one near you).
It was a fun race in a beautiful park. Organisation is handled entirely by volunteers who are plainly well practiced – things ran without a hitch today. It’s also entirely free – and there are t-shirts when you complete multiple races (10 for juniors, 50, 100 and 250). There were a few people with 100 club shirts on today.
Paul was way quicker than I was, so now I have a target to beat. I completed the course in 23:35, Paul was about 90 seconds quicker. From the graph below, you’ll see that I’m very much a downhill runner.
Paul is looking to organise a parkrun in Battersea Park (which would have two benefits for me – it’s nearer and much flatter) – so if that’s something that would interest you, get in touch with me and I’ll connect you.
Parkrun ethos is that it a timed run rather than a race, open to all ages, even a few dogs & prams! It's not as crazy as a fun or charity run, you get teenagers, OAPs and everyone in between putting their all into the distance.Parkrun publish your Age Grading ( http://bit.ly/Y5nsm) which I prefer to use as my training motivator to increase my % as it's an age independent ranking and let's us all run different times over the course.Join me on the 08:08 from Clapham Junction for a low carbon Saturday morning 5k parkrun.Paul