To help celebrate parkrun’s 22nd birthday, people were encouraged to don a tutu

THE town was buzzing with visitors for the long weekend but it took a while for the crowd to gather for the start of the 278th Gloucester parkrun last Saturday. 

In the end there were 78 finishers, with the many locals joined by visitors from far and wide: Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Parkes, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Lake Macquarie and, as one visitor put it, ‘just Central Coast’.

As usual, some were visiting family around Gloucester, while other visitors were energetically fitting in the parkrun before playing in the tennis tournament being held on the courts nearby.  One was so keen to run at Gloucester, he had left Sydney at 430am to come and run, and return the same day.

Some people had remembered to bring along a tutu – to help celebrate parkrun’s 22nd birthday (for those who have forgotten: tutu = two-two).

First male home was local Thomas Coombes again, with Aubrey Doyle the first female to finish.

Eighteen of the finishers were doing Gloucester parkrun for the first time, including five doing their very first parkrun – youngsters Halle and Leonardo Frame, Evelyan Ryan, Andre Salins and Rhys Stephen (welcome to parkrun, hopefully the first of many).

The cool conditions helped five personal bests – regular visitor Ashley Taylor,  Kirk and Tracy Inman , Shane Doyle (he explained his incentive was that he needed to run faster to keep ahead of his daughter Aubrey), and Malcolm Sopher (a newcomer to parkrun who runs in the 80-84 age group and is getting a little bit faster each week).

The event was run by a bunch of volunteers.

First in line was Cheryl Pitchard from Port Macquarie who is a regular visitor to Gloucester parkrun. As well as her role of tailwalker, Cheryl brought her smile, her tutu and a box of red frogs as a reward for those who returned their finish tokens.

Then came those who answered the late-in-the-week-call for volunteers so the event could happen.

Mel Wade has been doing timekeeper on a regular basis. This time she teamed up with another regular volunteer, Rod Eckels, on finish tokens.

Trish Pindsle backed up from volunteering as tail walker last week to do the job of scanner.

Gloucester parkrun is at 8am every Saturday – so come along and join in the fun of a 5 kilometre walk or run around Gloucester District Park (it’s a free event).