Parkruns have become an established part of the British running
scene over the last few years. It’s a very simple idea, based around free 5k
time trials. They’re usually held on Saturday mornings, and they’re run by
volunteers, with sponsorship from the likes of Sweatshop, Adidas, Lucozade
Sport and Prudential Insurance. There are no prizes, and it’s not really a
race, but the spirit of competition does push the times.
Until November, the nearest Parkrun for us had been Falkirk,
and I always felt this a long way just to run a 5k. But now, we have a Parkrun
in Perth, which is much easier, and which we plan to build into the regular
Saturday morning structured training sessions.
For the inaugural Perth Parkrun, we had a big club turnout, in what turned out to be the biggest ever first Parkrun, with over 260 runners taking part. Of the 20 or so Harriers and Juniors running, our first finisher was Phil T in 19.04, with nephew Danny M not far behind in 19.17. Stand-out performance was probably Andrew MacInnes, with an excellent 20.23. to finish second in the JM14 category.
The next scheduled Harriers session at the Perth Parkrun is in January, but they're free to anyone, so if you can't make the Harriers session, turn up any other Saturday morning and get a time recorded. You need to register beforehand and take a print-out of your barcode, but other then that, they seem to be very simple.
http://www.parkrun.org.uk/register/
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