My 450th parkrun

by Christine Gibbons

Thank you to everyone who joined me at Preston Park parkrun the other weekend to run my 450th parkrun and eat cake. Many of you asked me questions about my parkrun journey, so I thought I'll write it up.

I was taken to my first parkrun by my running coach Erika in November 2009 at Cardiff where I lived. I had been running for a year and 5k still seemed a long way. Cardiff is a flat one lapper—the fastest course I've done. I wasn't immediately addicted and left it until February 2010 before I did another. But since then I've run every Saturday except if I'm in a country without a parkrun or I'm racing a marathon.

I have done over 100 different parkruns (helped by moving around with my job), and I have been to some interesting places.

I can't really say if there is a favourite, but I liked running around the grounds of Fountains Abbey, Bradford New Year’s Day in the snow, and South Africa running amongst the sugar beet fields. However, I love staying at home too.

We are so blessed with so many parkruns in and around Brighton. Go and try them, especially in the summer. Go to Seaford and relax with coffee in the yacht club.

Over the years a lot has remained the same, such as barcodes, tokens, and results messages. But my age grading has gone up as I got fitter, milestone t-shirts are no longer delivered to your home parkrun, we are using phones for scanning, and parkrun is now in many countries across Europe and in Japan!

If you haven't tried it, go on the website, register and find one to run.