AFTER the frost of the week before, the crowd of 41 finishers was happy to bask in 7 degrees for the start of the 269th Gloucester parkrun last Saturday.
Joining the locals were visitors from Newcastle, Central Coast and Brisbane.
First male home was Oscar Evans, with Kate Richards the first female to finish – both on enjoying the Gloucester parkrun for the first time.
There were another six first-timers to Gloucester parkrun – coming for the scenic course along the river.
One of them was Lyndall Murray from Brisbane on her 259th parkrun. Lyndall had enough energy at the end of her run to record a podcast with one of Gloucester’s Run Directors Tracy Wilson about why our parkrun is so much fun.
Some of the parkrunners were there to encourage their children to enjoy exercise, or in a few cases, the children were so keen to run they dragged their parents out of bed on a Saturday morning.
Shane Doyle was doing his first ever parkrun with his daughter Aubrey – welcome to parkrun!
Others were visiting family in Gloucester, including three generations of the Ferris family joining in the morning’s event.
Some travelled especially to Gloucester for the parkrun, while others dropped in on their way through to another destination.
And then there are those whose one goal is to try to beat local inspiration Steve Robinson who runs in the 80-84 age category.
This time it was Tracy Wilson who claimed before she started that she ‘would try to keep up with Steve.’
She didn’t manage to (despite a few people offering to slow him down for her) but he inspired her to do a personal time.
Well done Tracy, and to others who did PBs – Paul Armstrong, Kourosh Maleklou and Mel Seale.
Once again the event was run by a team of enthusiastic volunteers – this time Trudie Murray was doing her regular job of timekeeping, working with Rod Eckels on finish tokens (who also helped set up the course).
Scanner Don Richardson managed to find a spot to capture whatever winter sun was available while he scanned. One comment was that he was a brave man – not sure if it was because he had a Newcastle Knights jumper on or because he was wearing shorts on a cold morning?
Regular tailwalker Jenny Lindsay was guiding the pack from behind, as well as carrying back the two large course cones as part of her weight training routine.
By Carolyn DAVIES
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