Having been reminded of the fact my blog has been neglected a little recently (thank you Ian Goudie!), I have decided to commit to updating at least twice per month from now onwards - call it a New Years resolution if you like!?

Given the time of year, and the surge in motivation towards health and fitness gym goers, I'd like to talk (as I often do) about parkrun, and give a brief report of the past few weeks, and what have been highlights for me.....

As you will probably already know, parkrun is a free, timed, 5km run, held each week in parks across the world, with our local parkrun being held in Newcastle on the Town Moor. parkrun goes ahead come rain or shine, and was even held on Christmas Day morning, as is the tradition.

The turn out of Christmas Day 2012 saw 135 parkrunners in attendance, along with some keen volunteers, willing to give up their time to allow others to run. This is a great example of the parkrun spirit and the friendliness and sense of community that exists. 

On Saturday 29th December, the last parkrun of 2012, I attended parkrun as a volunteer. I had noticed a comment posted on the Newcastle parkrun facebook page that one of our parkrunners was planning on beating a personal best that day and I thought I would complete the course alongside him - trying to pace as we went along. There were 217 runners in attendance, and the weather was pretty dismal and raining as is often the case on a Saturday morning in Newcastle! Mick had previously attended parkrun as an invaluable volunteer, taking the course and finishing photographs each week. He has since moved into participating in the run itself, and has now completed the course four times, each time achieving a PB. On this occassion the time to beat was 59:05, and so we started with a brisk walk and lots of talk to catch up and pass the time. At the first kilometre marker I admit I may have been chatting a little too much and we were off pace slightly, meaning the first km served as a warm up, with a little bit of time to make up!

We passed through gate 1 and grabbed some motivation from marshall Malcom who is now very much a piece of the furniture at Newcastle! By 2k we were back on target and passed through the mud at gate 2, with marshall Steven joining us for the remainder of the course. Keeping an eye on time we pushed through 3k and around the gravel part of the course to 4k and gate 3 where we were greeted by more marshals, offering their support. By this time we only had 1km to the finish line, and were on target for Mick's PB.

Towards the end of the course Mick was tired, although helped along by Steven's motivating words, and a few photographs from a rogue photographer, we were almost going to make the PB timing. Mick came across the line at 10am as timed by our watches, and so assumed that the PB had been missed. However, when the results came through and the official times had been processed, Mick had achieved a PB of a whole minute, coming in at 58:06. Amazing! I feel so proud to have been a part of helping achieve this goal, and can't wait to see Mick smash his next target in a few weeks time!! What an inspiration to all of us to challenge ourselves and achieve something.

This weekend at parkrun, Saturday 5th January, we saw a huge spike in attendence figures, with 401 runners completing the course. It seems the New Year has inspired many runners to dust off their trainers and run at parkrun, either as an existing runner, or as a first timer. 63 first time runners attended parkrun on Saturday, including the first finisher, which is great news for increasing participation within exercise in the area. I really hope we will be seeing those runners again as they run parkrun either for fun, or as a means to improve times and fitness levels on an ongoing basis (or both!).

Of particular note this weekend was the presence of Tony the Fridge! You may have seen Tony taking on the likes of the Great North Run complete with his fridge on his back, and he is challenging himself to complete 100 miles of running in 24 hours with this 42kg fridge on Friday March 29th. Tony is raising money for The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation and completed parkrun on Saturday in 33:01 - absolutely incredible! 

To support Tony you are able to donate at, http://www.justgiving.com/tonythefridge 

                                                            Can you spot the fridge???

To register for parkrun, whether it be Newcastle, Whitley Bay, Sunderland, Durham, Chester-le-street, or beyond, visit www.parkrun.com then print off your barcode and turn up and run. Whether completing 5km takes you 15 minutes or over an hour, Ian Kirtley and the team will love to see you down there, as will I. Happy running in January!

Thanks, 

Niyc xx