As part of the Olympic celebrations in the countdown to this amazing event, Sweatshop Stratford would like to offer all runners of Valentines parkrun an exclusive 20.12% discount this week.

The offer is Sweatshops commitment to help all runners wear the best kit and be the best they can be!

Valentines Parkrun exclusive discount week will be May 21st - 27th

All runners will receive their exclusive discount by showing their parkrun barcode at point of sale. The 20.12% discount is exclusive to Sweatshop Stratford and is available on all non-sale products which
include Footwear, Footbalance insoles, accessories & clothing. Please note the discount doesn't apply to timepieces and nutrition.
 

Many congratulations to our April Sweatshop prize winner Nikki Cranmer.

The award is a fitting way to celebrate the end of Nikki's first parkrun year, having first come to VP for event 11 on April 30th 2011. Since then Nikki has made a significant contribution to the success of our parkrun and has volunteered (20 times) as much as she has run (19 times).

Nikki has performed almost every role and every member of the RD team knows there will be no issues when they are lucky enough to have her on their team.

We'd like to thank Hugh Brasher of Sweatshop for his generosity in giving our prize winner a pair of running shoes of her choice (and colour!!)

April was a fantastic running month for Nikki having completed the London Marathon and we hope this award has added a little bit of icing to her running cake.

Great to see Valentines Parkrun continuing to average well over 100 runners each week, with 120 runners turning out in perfect racing (we mean running!) conditions. The weather was pretty kind to runners but a tad cold for our wonderful volunteers. Our volunteer team this week were Andrew GWILLIAM • Jaswinder Kaur GILL • Nikki CRANMER • Parminder Singh GILL • Paul EAGLES • Richard ASH • Rory MARRIOTT • Saravanan SIVAKUMAR • Sharon DAUGHTERS • Stephen EASLEY • Vicki GROVES and Sukhdev SAHNI

This week there were 120 runners. 14 were first timers and a whopping 43 runners took advantage of the excellent conditions to record new personal bests. There was a split of 58 men and 56 women and 6 were unknown runners. Representatives of 14 different athletics clubs took part.

Nikki Cranmer was awarded the Sweatshop parkrunner of the month prize. But considering she did her tail running duties in a pair of brand new shoes, we're hoping to raffle off her award next week to raise some funds for Valentines parkrun!

Well done to Carol MUIR, the first homegrown Valentine parkrunner to get her 50 t-shirt.

Today's results were:

Men's placings:

Glen TURNER (SM30-34) of Blackheath & Bromley Harriers AC, was first in 16:56 - third win in 4th appearance.
Chris O'HARA (SM30-34) (Unattached) was second in 18:02.
Tyler MACKENZIE (JM15-19) (Unattached) was third in 18:44.
Current standing in the Men's annual points competition:
Gary CARDNELL (Dagenham 88 Runners) 1006 pts.
Kieron CHAPMAN (Barking Road Runners) 938 pts.
Pathrose LOUIS (Ilford AC) 914 pts.
Women's placings:
Helen MANNING (SW30-34) (Unattached) was first (13th overall) in 21:13 - first appearance.
Faye SPOONER (SW30-34) of Barking Road Runners, was second (20th overall) in 22:19 - 1 previous win.
Jessica FERRIS (JW14) (Unattached) was third (25th overall) in 22:57.
Current standing in the Women's annual points competition:
Christine SUTHERLAND (Havering '90 Joggers) 1021 pts.
Carol MUIR (Ilford AC) 1015 pts.
Julia RIDLEY (Ilford AC) 984 pts.
The following runners recorded the best Age Grade scores:
Glen TURNER (SM30-34) was graded 76.57 % for the time 16:56 (first overall).
Oliver CAVIGLIOLI (VM55-59) was graded 75.89 % for the time 20:57 (11th overall).
Ronald VIALLS (VM60-64) was graded 75.04 % for the time 21:22 (15th overall).


The Women's course record is held by Rebecca ROBINSON who ran in a time of 17:17 on 2nd July 2011 (event number 20).

The Men's course record is held by Bertie POWELL who ran in a time of 15:56 on 6th August 2011 (event number 25).

The Age Grade course record is held by Fauja SINGH who recorded a 179.04 % run (38:34) on 31st March 2012 (event number 59).

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

We hope you enjoyed today but please remember that this event can not go ahead without volunteers so please try and volunteer at least 3 times a year

Great turnout this morning despite the dreary weather! Our hardcore team of volunteers were........Caroline CUMMINS • Christopher SEWELL • Garry SUKHIJA • Kieron CHAPMAN • Mohammed ROB • Nikki CRANMER • Pritesh PATEL • Richard ASH • Rory MARRIOTT • Sukhdev SAHNI • Vicki GROVES • Vicky COOPER

Well done to Glen on coming first and for also being as helpful as ever and doing the newbies chat - we hope our 14 first timers enjoyed it and feel welcomed into the parkrun family as the most definitely are. Also thanks go to our official photographer Rory for the great (or not so great!) photos that he puts on facebook every week.

This week saw 111 runners, 53 men, 49 women and 9 unknowns. Another 31 PBs this week. Get in!! Among these 111 hardy souls who turned up to run in the rain was Fauja Singh, fresh from completing the London marathon last week. Fauja now holds the age grade record for parkrun as both a 100 AND 101 year old - and both these were at Valentines parkrun.

Results were processed in the Valentines cafe near the start line and Pritish is looking good to go solo very soon! We hope the cafe will continue to open at 9:30am to cater for our ravenous post run parkrunners, so please come along in future weeks if you can.

And finally, a special congratulations to all the Valentines parkrunners who completed the Virgin London Marathon last Sunday. Don't forget that applications for 2013 open this Monday.

During a weekend synonymous with running and raising funds for many worthy causes a remarkable and heart warming event was happening during this weeks run.

At the start of the run briefing the amplified voice of RD Rory passed on Timi Veerasamy's thanks to all the parkrunners that had helped her raise £550 for the NSPCC by running the Brighton Marathon the week before.

The volunteers received a special round of applause this week as (with the exception of 3) all of them all would be taking part in the London Marathon the following day. Our volunteers were Caroline CUMMINS • Christopher SEWELL • Danny WHITE • Gary CARDNELL • Harinder MANN • Harmander SINGH • James LOWNDES • Nikki CRANMER • Rakesh SANDHU • Richard ASH • Rory MARRIOTT.

And then with a 3, 2, 1 countdown 128 runners set of on their 5km run. 34 were inspired to new PBs, 2 runners were making their VP debut and a record breaking 33 newcomers joined the parkrun community.

In amongst the newcomers was a group of twenty 9 to 15 year and returning parkrunner Jenna Norman. This fantastic and inspiring group were raising money for The Phoenix Centre Eating Disorder Unit in Cambrdge. The Phoenix Centre is a specialist service for the treatment of teenagers (aged 12-17 years) with eating disorders, mostly Anorexia Nervosa.

Jenna had Anorexia that coincided with her starting Secondary school and she spent a total of 3 months in the Phoenix. To show her appreciation to the Unit Jenna wanted to raise some much needed funds and with the help of her sister Hayley organised all the runners that joined us on Saturday morning.

With all the bad press that young adults and children receive at the moment it is a breath of fresh air that so many of them joined together in a positive manner. Once they collect all the money a phenomenal £1,000 will be going to the unit.

I hope that each and every single one of the 21 feel an enormous sense of achievement and are very proud of themselves.

And to cap it all Jenna smashed her PB by 53 seconds.