Good evening park runners.

What a beautiful morning it was in Stewart park today. Sunshine, blue skies and dry paths - it actually felt like Spring to me! 302 park runners agreed with me, not doubt relieved to be running a parkrun rather than some sort of steeplechase/skating event/triathlon. It was really nice to see some faces that we have not seen for a while. Keep your fingers crossed for a continuing dry spell.

In addition to our runners, we had a good turn-out of volunteers today, some of whom were volunteering for the first time. Everyone enjoyed it, newbies and stalwarts alike. Our superstars this morning were Alan GUY • Angela WOOD. • Danielle LEONARD • David JUKES • Fred FORTH • John FEARNS • Julie LOWRIE • Kenny SALKELD • Kirsty CATTERSON • Lindsey SCOTT • Mark WARDMAN • Paul HAYDON • Roger OLDROYD • Roseanne LIGHTFOOT • Samantha TAYLOR • Sarah-Jane MONSARRATT • Thomas SCOTT • Tom RUSH • William RUDDY and also Sam Smethurst who took on the role of results processor following a slight glitch (it was best that way - I'm not to be trusted with technology and would have probably spent half the day on the phone to her if I'd brought the results home with me!) We are always on the lookout for new people to volunteer - it honestly is a great way to spend an hour or two on a Saturday morning. Please email in or post on our FB page if you would like to help. We now have some people volunteering weeks in advance. They usually apologise for contacting is so early but, in fact, it is great to know that key positions are filled well ahead of time, so look at your calendar, decide when you would like to volunteer and get in touch asap!

Today our runners included visitors from Fountains Abbey, Sewerby and Australia. We got some lovely feedback from them about the organisation and friendly feel of our parkrun, which was great! Running milestones today were junior William Monserrat (10th run), Claire Leadbitter celebrating 50 runs and Edward Roxburgh and Bref O'Rourke clocking up their 100th runs. Well done to all of you.

Can I apologise to the two ladies I was speaking to about pacer week - I'm afraid I don't know your names - for abruptly leaving the conversation. Unfortunately, one of our regular runners, John, had a mishap close to the finish and took a fall, which I went across to investigate. John got up and collected his finish token before being checked out. He had sustained some nasty bruises and grazes but nothing major, thank goodness. Thank you to all of you who stopped to help John and to the lovely staff in Henry's Cafe who provided a bag of frozen peas to apply to John's bruises! I expect he will be a bit sore for a few days and send best wishes on behalf of all of us at Stewart parkrun.

Obviously, we do not want any park runner to have any kind of accident but accept that sometimes these things will happen. Today was unfortunate and could not be avoided. However, we are keen to ensure that there are no avoidable incidents at parkrun and it is our duty as Event Directors for Sam and me to take steps to safeguard all of our runners in this respect. Today it was brought to my attention that a number of runners are not following the expectations regarding dogs. Runners are welcome to run with one dog on a short lead. Such runners must start at the back of the field and I know from the excited chorus at the beginning of each run that most of you do so. Quicker runners can then progress through the pack when it is safe to pass others. However, some runners have taken to starting further forward within the large group of runners at the start. This is potentially dangerous as people can easily trip over a dog, become entangled with the lead etc. The core team will be monitoring this closely and runners with dogs will be asked to move at the start if we consider their starting position to be unsuitable. This is in the interests of safety for all, and I thank you in advance for your understanding and support.

On the subject of dogs, I almost inadvertently caused an accident myself today when regular parkrunner, Mark Waters, and his dog passed me on his first lap this morning. Note to self - do not say "Well done" to a dog and include its name in the sentence. Mark wanted to turn left, dog wanted to come over to me and be petted. Sorry again, Mark!

For those of you running races tomorrow, including the biggie down in London, have a fantastic day and enjoy your run.

Hope to see you all again next week for another brilliant Stewart parkrun.

Ruth x

Evening everyone.
Well what a day!

Firstly, I would like to thank our amazing volunteers, yes volunteers! They turned up today to support every participant to a free, timed run. They are the real superheroes of Stewart parkrun.

The event was made possible by 25 volunteers today:

Alan GUY • Roseanne LIGHTFOOT • Matthew CLARKSON • Kerri MULDOWNEY • Sam SMETHURST • Mark WARDMAN • Kenny SALKELD • Michael MCCANN • Jacquie Ann KELLY • Fred FORTH • John FEARNS • Nicola SHERIDAN • Julie LOWRIE • Thomas BUTLER • Daz MENDOZA • Chris JONES • Rachel EMERY • Roger OLDROYD • Kirsty CATTERSON • Mandy WALKER • Sharon MCLOUGHLIN • Kimberley ROBINSON • Lisa ROBINSON • Teresa MURPHY • Sarah-Jane MONSARRATT

We had visitors from all over the UK today. From as far as London, Pontefract and Birmingham along with Albert park and a whole bunch from Darlington (up & running). I hope you enjoyed your time at Stewart park and we would love to see you all again soon.

As many of you are aware, we had a mix up in positions and times within the results. A couple of batches of position tokens were accidentally given out in the wrong order. Meaning the token you may have received didn't match the position in the results. I have manually removed people and added them back in the correct order/position. This was a time consuming task and still may not be fully accurate, however I hope I have rectified many of the issues. Thank you for your patience as I completed this and your full understanding.

Well done to all the Destination Boro stars who ran the streets of Middlesbrough at the crack of dawn in superhero costumes before joining us at parkrun. A range of 13 miles to 3 miles were completed by the group today. Good going all and it gave me a reason to wear a Batgirl costume (BTW, it is Ruth's )

Well done Andy Steedman on his 50th parkrun today (you kept that quiet!!!) and Dawn Lilly on her 100th (finally lol ) Great going guys x

That is it from me, a bottle of vino is chilling with my name on it.
See you next week,
Sam x

Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough
Event number 301
14th April 2018
This week 297 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 66 were first timers and 26 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 18 different clubs took part.

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough Results Page.

The male record is held by Gregory JAYASURIYA who recorded a time of 15:48 on 13th February 2016 (event number 188).
The female record is held by Josephine STONE who recorded a time of 18:21 on 21st January 2017 (event number 237).
The Age Grade course record is held by Gabrielle HALL who recorded 88.37% (20:30) on 7th February 2015 (event number 136).

Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough started on 7th July 2012. Since then 7,914 participants have completed 70,442 parkruns covering a total distance of 352,210 km, including 12,154 new Personal Bests.

Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough
Event number 300
7th April 2018

Good afternoon everyone. Well for once the weather was kind to us parkrunners - I actually had to shed my coat at one point during the morning!! It was great to see so many people enjoying the event this morning. We had visitors from Birmingham and other more local parkruns.

Thanks so much for all the help we had making the event happen today. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes of parkrun and without the amazing efforts of our Event Directors we simply couldn't hold an event at Stewart Park. We also have a really strong team of helpers who set up and clear up the course each and every week. Honestly your efforts are appreciated by all.

I am also going to heap massive praise on our army of helpers who came out today. Pacer week is always challenging when trying to find people to do all the other roles, but as always you all mucked in to help out. Thank you.

We had 25 new PB's today in challenging conditions and no doubt one or two of these were achieved with the help of our pacers. Thanks to all those who wore the pacer vests - some of you nailed it, some of you may need to come back next time to work on your pace!!! Remember its always the first Saturday of the month at Stewart Park.

We have been notified that work will be commencing soon to tackle the longstanding problem of the standing water within the park and to identify what the issues are. This is great news and we will keep you updated on the progress. Hopefully we will be back to running the A Route soon enough although I know one or two of you will miss the mud.

Congratulations again to Harry SHORT for completing his 250th parkrun this morning. Harry is a top man and a regular volunteer at Stewart Park - looking forward to seeing you sporting your new t-shirt soon. And finally I hope Joesph BUTLER managed to find his shoe that got sucked off in the mud. Those white socks that you ran the rest of the course in are going to take some washing!!!

This week 190 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 11 were first timers and 25 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 10 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 30 volunteers:

Alan GUY • Roseanne LIGHTFOOT • Craig LIGHTFOOT • Kerri MULDOWNEY • David BYTHEWAY • Phil HUGHES-NARBOROUGH • Sam SMETHURST • Paul SMETHURST • Kenny SALKELD • Jon TAPPER • Fred FORTH • John FEARNS • David JUKES • Peter ROXBY • Lewis BOURNER • Nicola SHERIDAN • Sally MENDOZA • Julie LOWRIE • Dave SMITH • Mark WATERS • Alison TAPPER • Steven DODDS • Ian ECCLES • Roger OLDROYD • Lindsey SCOTT • Anna ROWAN • Kimberley ROBINSON • Lisa ROBINSON • Andrew HARRIS • Sarah-Jane MONSARRATT

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough Results Page.

The male record is held by Gregory JAYASURIYA who recorded a time of 15:48 on 13th February 2016 (event number 188).
The female record is held by Josephine STONE who recorded a time of 18:21 on 21st January 2017 (event number 237).
The Age Grade course record is held by Gabrielle HALL who recorded 88.37% (20:30) on 7th February 2015 (event number 136).

Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough started on 7th July 2012. Since then 7,848 participants have completed 70,145 parkruns covering a total distance of 350,725 km, including 12,128 new Personal Bests.

Whether you're running in Manchester Marathon, Sheffield Half or any other event tomorrow - good luck, enjoy and come back to Stewart parkrun in one piece.

Have a great weekend,

Jon

Morning everyone, apologies for the delay in starting, the timer decided to stay in the warm, thank you Sam for running down to get it. Luckily the rained stayed away and you didn't have to listen to me sing (although there was an awkward silence). We had a good turn out with 182 runners taking part.

Thanks to everyone who volunteered this morning. We did struggle slightly today, if anyone is able to volunteer please let us know.

Today marked Alan Guy's 150 stint at Stewart's park as a volunteer (400+ in total). Alan is here week in week out to set up, do the new runner briefs, Marshall/time-keep/barcodes then close down. On behalf of all the directors we thank you Alan for your commitment and hard work.

We also had Alan Blackwood completing his 100th Parkrun.

Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough
Event number 297
17th March 2018

Well that was certainly a fresh way to start the weekend. A massive well done to all our runners who braved the icy winds and snow showers this morning. It was great to see so many cheery faces on the start line.

I also would like to thank every single one of our volunteers who made the event happen today in such extreme conditions. We had lots of people come forward during the week which really makes it a lot easier for the Run Director to organise things - so thank you. In addition lots of people came forward later in the week and some even turned up this morning willing to help. Every single offer is appreciated and we are always grateful to anyone who gives their time. So if you are available to help out over the coming weeks please respond to our Facebook appeals or contact us at stewartoffice@parkrun.com. Meeting new volunteers and being part of the event team is a real highlight of my week - so come and join us.

We were celebrating some fantastic milestones this morning including Paige MCLEOD aged 17 yrs (200), Andrea TODD and Squirrel (50), Colin PEARSON (50) and Ruby DONNELLY aged 9 years (50). We also had lots of first timers which was great to see. So well done everyone celebrating their milestones and thanks for choosing Stewart parkrun.

Just a quick update on the course. As you may have noticed its a bit muddy and wet in places on the current route. We have had lots of feedback and suggestions from runners about variations to the route which we are really grateful for. Our Event Director team is consulting with the parkrun Ambassador and we will provide you an update as soon as we can. In the mean time bear with us, keep smiling and enjoy the mudfest!!

This week 121 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 7 were first timers and 10 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 9 different clubs took part.

This week the event was made possible by 26 volunteers:

Nicola PEARSON • Alan GUY • Roseanne LIGHTFOOT • Doug WELSH • Kenny SALKELD • Jon TAPPER • Jacquie Ann KELLY • Harry SHORT • John FEARNS • Ruth MCMASTER LEES • Penny OUTHWAITE • Helen WILSON • Michelle LARSEN • Nicola SHERIDAN • Alison STROANDER • Steven DODDS • Andy STEEDMAN • David TURNER • Roger OLDROYD • David GALE • Kirsty CATTERSON • Mandy WALKER • Anna ROWAN • William RUDDY • Tom RUSH • Wendy RUSH

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough Results Page.

The male record is held by Gregory JAYASURIYA who recorded a time of 15:48 on 13th February 2016 (event number 188).
The female record is held by Josephine STONE who recorded a time of 18:21 on 21st January 2017 (event number 237).
The Age Grade course record is held by Gabrielle HALL who recorded 88.37% (20:30) on 7th February 2015 (event number 136).

Stewart parkrun, Middlesbrough started on 7th July 2012. Since then 7,799 participants have completed 69,614 parkruns covering a total distance of 348,070 km, including 12,069 new Personal Bests.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone. Good luck to all those who are running in events tomorrow. Stay safe (and warm) and we will see you next week.

Jon.