Warrington junior parkrun celebrated its first birthday with 61 brave young runners and their families turning up to celebrate – despite the freezing conditions.
Wearing their super hero costumes, the little runners braved the cold weather to take on the 2km route round Orford Park.
The event has seen more than 700 youngsters take on the course, which was funded originally by Active Cheshire’s Active Anywhere fund and initiated by LiveWire’s Lou Shannon. The course has seen an impressive 13 hours of running and achieving almost 8,000km in just 12 months.
Junior parkrun is a national initiative where children aged four-14 are able to take part in a free timed 2km event where they can walk or run their way round the route. Parents can join in and have a workout themselves or can stand and cheer them on.
The young runners can work towards wristbands by attending as many weeks as they can, with them being awarded when they have accomplished the equivalent distance of half marathon, marathon and a remarkable ultra-marathon distance of 100 km.
Lots of the young runners in Warrington have their marathon wristbands and are not far away from the orange ultra-marathon wristband which they get for completing 50 runs.
Louise Blizzard’s son Alfie is one of the young runners who is only five runs away from his orange wristband and his mum is one of the events biggest supporters. She said. “Alfie is so proud to be part of Warrington junior parkrun and always gets excited on a Saturday night. He just enjoys it and doesn’t mind how long it takes him to get around the course which is a great way to be.”
Lots of local junior sport clubs are using the junior parkrun as one of their training sessions for their team to increase players’ stamina and speed.
But there is no pressure to rush round the course and get speedy times – the ethos of the event is participation and they can walk, run, hop, skip and jump their way round the route and receive the most wonderful cheers from the course marshals.
Lou Shannon, senior LiveWire advisor for health and inclusion, added “None of this would be possible without the support of the amazing core team of volunteers who are absolute real heroes turning up each Sunday morning to put on the free event for the young people of the area.
“Without these volunteers who turn up week-in and week-out to set up the course, marshal and process the results, there would be so many disappointed little runners out there.
“The core team are always looking for more volunteers to make this event possible and welcome runners and non-runners alike to come and give up less than one hour of a Sunday morning to help make it happen. It doesn’t have to be a regular commitment – all support is welcome and it is such a rewarding experience.”
If your young runner would like to take part in junior parkrun simply register online, print off your barcode and turn up ready to warm up for 08:50 each Sunday at Orford Jubilee Neighbourhood Hub http://www.parkrun.org.uk/warrington-juniors/
Or if you would like to marshal at this fantastic event, contact the volunteer coordinator [email protected]
