Welcome to this weeks' run report for the Chicago parkrun, well it felt like we were in the windy city ! A strong tail wind helped for a brisk start for our 110 runners, the only  downside of Barking parkrun is that you then turn into a headwind along the lake and then spend the rest of the run in and out of the wind. We had a little fun before the event moving fallen branches and lots of general debris but we were able to go ahead safely and the conditions did not prevent 10 of you from obtaining a pb.

In view of the weather we will give first shout out to those who did a pb; so well done to George Scratcherd, Anna Crawley, James Hall, Rohan Sood, Simon Hill, Leslie Jay, Louise Adams, Ilyas Sarwar, Natalie Osei-Owusu & Margaret Byers.

We were delighted to welcome 19 first timers, which included 7 people undertaking their first parkrun ; so a very warm welcome to Barking and parkrun to Nicholas Rogers, Luke Jeffries, Egidijus Vedrickas, Karan Sood, Michael Mwale, Namgidi Ntuli & Jack Dovey. An equally warm welcome to Barking to Simon Leung-Chester, Darren Woods, Kevin Mcaleer, Simon Gosney, Nicholas Mortimer, Neil Mcdonough, Jason Manning, Richard Cossey, Kerry Curtis, Robyn Robertson, Sophie Walker &Clara James. At the other end of the spectrum congratulations to Ray Mitchell for completing parkrun number 200 !

Possibly a long shot but we have lost finish token number 97, this might just be a coincidence, but positions 96,98&99 were Doveys, was there a fourth Dovey without a barcode who may have taken our token home in error? If you have accidentally taken our token home can you return it next week. We have an amnesty policy no questions asked, but as we say in the run briefing we do need these tokens each week, as making replacements can be costly and time consuming.

You may well already be aware of this but thanks to mayor Khan, for the whole month of September travel on the London Overground Gospel Oak to Barking line is completely free (details on tfl website), so if you use this line to get to us you can have a true free run at Barking.

FEMALE RESULTS: 1; Anna Crawley 21.44 (new pb) 2; Belinda Riches 24.42 3; Sally Bridge 26.11 highest age graded score Anna in 1st place 68.10%

MALE RESULTS; 1; Simon Leung-Chester 19.25 2; George Scratcherd 19.47 3; Jason Syrett 19.51 highest age graded score Kevin Mcaleer 76.08%

 

This week 110 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 19 were first timers and 10 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 18 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 9 volunteers:

Philip PEARSON • Alison FRYATT • John LANG • Chris HESLEGRAVE • Sonya VEERASAMY • Denise GRAHAM • Greg ADAMS • Irma CERNYCHIENE • Liz PEARCE

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

The female record is held by Lydia HALLAM who recorded a time of 17:42 on 12th August 2017 (event number 267).
The male record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded a time of 14:52 on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).
The Age Grade course record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded 90.47% (14:52) on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).

Barking parkrun started on 28th July 2012. Since then 3,627 participants have completed 29,527 parkruns covering a total distance of 147,635 km, including 4,552 new Personal Bests. A total of 393 individuals have volunteered 4,570 times.

What a difference a week makes in the life of a parkrunner, no need for snorkel and flippers this week, also no need for the waterproof gear for the volunteers !
Firstly welcome to the 12 people making their debut at Barking parkrun, including 3 people making their parkrun debut. We hope you all enjoyed our little event, please feel free to call again. Therefore welcome to parkrun to Wayne Pennington,Rohan Sood & Alice Dovey, welcome to Barking ; Andrew Hartley, Mark Jefford, Ujjwal Shrestha, John Cornell, Emily Quin, Gerard Francis Thompson,Amardeep Singh Rai, Philip Bryant & Theresa Bryant.

Secondly but just as important congratulations to the following who have completed Barking parkrun faster than ever before ; James Taverner, Warren Ibrahim, Clifford Clarke, Simon Hill, Wale Salami, David Pearce, Janet Potter, Valerie Cullen, Hanya Bentomane, David Weaver, Charity Anyika, Natalie Osei-Owusu , Linda Weaver & Evelyn Riches. In amongst the pb's, special mention to David Pearce for completing 50 parkruns, David Weaver for 6 consecutive pb's & Evelyn Riches for taking one and a half minutes off your previous time. We know we say this quite often, we try to look out for landmark runs but we receive no notifications, so just look at the last couple of weeks results to try and spot anyone who is close. So apologies if we do not give you a shout out on the start line, although we will try to mention you in the run report if one gets done.

FEMALE RESULTS : 1 Sameena Ahmed 21.42; 2 Emily Quin 22.43; 3 Belinda Riches 24.03 Highest age graded score Ellen Harrison 77.35%

MALE RESULTS : 1 Andrew Hartley 17.07; 2 James Taverner 18.26; 3 Mark Jefford 20.05 Highest age graded score Andrew in 1st place 77.99%

You may well be going away on your summer holidays in the coming weeks, so remember to take your barcode with you,  as you can participate anywhere in the world, as long as you have it with you. The downside of this is obviously if our regular helpers are away on holiday,  we still  need volunteers to make the parkrun magic happen. To this end please take a moment to have a look at the volunteer roster for future events and consider putting your name forward, either by email or on our facebook page, as obtaining the required helpers can be difficult during the summer months.

This week 97 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 12 were first timers and 14 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 15 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 9 volunteers:

Rowland LYONS • Harmander SINGH • Mick MOOHAN • Chris HESLEGRAVE • Denise GRAHAM • Phil REID • Carolyn REID • Irma CERNYCHIENE • Liz PEARCE

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

The female record is held by Lydia HALLAM who recorded a time of 17:42 on 12th August 2017 (event number 267).
The male record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded a time of 14:52 on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).
The Age Grade course record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded 90.47% (14:52) on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).

Barking parkrun started on 28th July 2012. Since then 3,607 participants have completed 29,417 parkruns covering a total distance of 147,085 km, including 4,542 new Personal Bests. A total of 393 individuals have volunteered 4,561 times.

SALLY BRIDGE & ANNETTE PRIOR 500 parkruns completed equally between them congratulations both on completing 250 each today, whilst handcuffed together. (Couldn't get your names up in lights, sorry best we could do). Whilst not an official parkrun milestone well done to Harmander Singh for completing parkrun number 300!. At the other end of the scale we were delighted to welcome 6 people undertaking their first parkrun, Mathew Morris, Momoko Morikawa, Cherone Johnson, Pahris Cotterell, Aiswarya Kurup & Sarah Bikwa, thank you for choosing to join us at Barking. We hope you had fun and will be back to see us again very soon, don't forget we are here every Saturday at 9 am.

We were also pleased to welcome the following tourists this week. Tom Carnall, Gary Hobbs, Malgorzata Kucharska, Stephanie Helen Robinson, Tanith Cook, Sophie Moore, Kat Hill, Rachel Dowling, Simon Randle & Tony Sykes, likewise we hope you had fun, and obviously you are all welcome back at any time.

Despite the heat we had our usual fairly high number of personal bests, so congratulations to the following for finishing Barking parkrun faster than you have ever done before;  Ibrahim Bashiru, George Scratcherd, Boaz Micah, James Hall, Eamonn Connolly, Saif Khan, Rajesh Muthusamy, Valerie Cullen, Charity Anyika, David Weaver, Irma Cernychien, & Linda Weaver. Watch out for David he could be the new Michael .

We are reasonably well fixed for volunteers for next week although there are a few gaps if you can help; however the following week 13th July coincides with the spitfire scramble and many of our core team are unavailable for parkrun, so we would love to hear from anyone who can help out at this event. You can either email to barkinghelpers@parkrun.com or contact us through our facebook page. On the subject of facebook you might find it useful to like our page as this is the easiest way we have of giving you any updates, and advice for upcoming events.

FEMALE RESULTS ; 1; Sameena Ahmed 21.43 2; Malgorzata Kucharska 22.56 3;Carolina Chisholm 24.52  Highest age graded score Sameena in 1st place.

MALE RESULTS ; 1 Liviu Ionita 16.37 2; Tom Carnall 19.24 3; Ibrahim Bashiru 20.10 Highest age graded score Liviu in 1st place.

This week 128 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 16 were first timers and 12 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 13 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 10 volunteers:

Alison FRYATT • Robert COURTIER • Harmander SINGH • Chris HESLEGRAVE • Andy PRESTON • Cashelle SOURIS • Lee PARKER • Veronica BARIKOR • Denise GRAHAM • Greg ADAMS

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

The female record is held by Lydia HALLAM who recorded a time of 17:42 on 12th August 2017 (event number 267).
The male record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded a time of 14:52 on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).
The Age Grade course record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded 90.47% (14:52) on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).

Barking parkrun started on 28th July 2012. Since then 3,538 participants have completed 28,903 parkruns covering a total distance of 144,515 km, including 4,473 new Personal Bests. A total of 393 individuals have volunteered 4,505 times.

Well, it felt like summer had finally arrived today, and it brought with it one of our highest turn-outs at Barking parkrun for a non-Christmas day run. This week 141 people ran, jogged and walked the course, including 17 first timers to Barking, of whom six were first timers to parkrun too (welcome to Sam Ferguson, Amie Macklin-Proffitt, Rajesh Muthusamy, Keely Perry, Vilma Bieliunaite, and Natalie Radcliffe). It was also good to see quite a few people coming along for their second run – hopefully that means they’ve already become addicted to parkrun! We also saw 17 new Personal Bests this week, including from Jason Li, who celebrated his birthday the day before and treated us to cakes and some much-needed orange squash.

For those of you interested in a bit of local history, I mentioned that it was the 108th anniversary of the great oak tree of Barking Park. The tree was planted in the middle of the park on 22 June 1911 to celebrate the coronation of King George the 5th, the grandfather of the current Queen. Oak trees live for 200 years on average, though the oldest oak tree in England (in Lincolnshire) is estimated to be over 1,000 years old. Oaks are the tree most likely to be hit by lightning, so best to keep away from the Barking Oak if you are caught in a storm while in the park!

Back to parkrun, and today’s event was made possible by 13 wonderful volunteers:

Rowland LYONS • Alison FRYATT • Harmander SINGH • Mick MOOHAN • Chris HESLEGRAVE • Noel COTTRELL • Chris ANASTASI • Leigh LI • Harrison K H LI • Gwyneth M W LI • Irma CERNYCHIENE • Charity ANYIKA • Liz PEARCE

Parkrun is organised by volunteers; they’re just normal people like you and me, but they’re also extra special people because they help put on our fantastic event every week. If you would like to help one week, please drop us a line at barkinghelpers@parkrun.com and let us know when you are available and what role you would like to try. The full roster, which lists all the key roles, can be found at https://www.parkrun.org.uk/barking/futureroster/.

The first three men across the line today were:

1. Liviu Ionita in 16:34 (new PB)

2. Joe Stacey in 18:44(new PB)

3. Diarmuid Mac Donnell in 19:20

The first three women across the line were:
1. Virginia SILIO in 20:39 (first timer at Barking parkrun)
2. Carolina Chisolm in 24:45 (new PB)
3. Charlotte Owen in 25:29

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

The female record is held by Lydia HALLAM who recorded a time of 17:42 on 12th August 2017 (event number 267).
The male record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded a time of 14:52 on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).
The Age Grade course record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded 90.47% (14:52) on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).

Barking parkrun started on 28th July 2012. Since then 3,522 participants have completed 28,775 parkruns covering a total distance of 143,875 km, including 4,461 new Personal Bests. A total of 393 individuals have volunteered 4,495 times.

With the vagaries of London's public transport system, your volunteer team often turn up to get things set up, to be greeted by the popular orange hue of parkrun's visitor/tourist t-shirts on smiling faces around 0815 on Saturday mornings. This time round, Kathryn Berry (home turf of Guildford, but a seasoned tourist attempting to chalk off all the London events in the coming few months), and Eden Grey (from Washington DC, USA) were our tourist welcoming committee, building in extra time to make sure they didn't miss out on their weekly parkrun community fixes.

So it turns out that Eden is in the UK for a week, and after scouring the parkrun UK events website, chose Barking as her stop-off point. We obviously couldn't let the moment pass. After further enquiry, we discover that state-side, Eden is a regular blogger and part of the 'barkrun' community, combining their love of our canine friends with a devotion for parkrun! Our event name combines both of her passions, so no transatlantic trip could be complete without discovering our own corner of east London! Well, Eden, we are glad you chose us, and hope that your first experience of a London 'greasy spoon' at the Daily Munch cafe, Faircross Parade afterwards was as much an enjoyable experience!

Eden and Kathryn were among 18 first-timers. And while both are forgiven if this ends up being their only visit to Barking parkrun, we hope all of the other first-timers, and particularly those who also began their parkrun journeys this weekend, come back as often as possible and take part. You will all be made very welcome when you do.

We were also pleased to help a couple of celebrating milestoners at the start line. Mahbub Khan, a member of local running club Barking Road Runners, chalked up the 150 milestone today, and we also cheered heartily for Justin Chisholm, who reached his '100. Well done, both. As always, we try to look out for upcoming milestones, but a quick tug on the sleeve of your Run Director beforehand guarantees we always get the announcement in, and you get your deserved accolade!

One of our favourite PBs of the day belongs to W70-74 age-grouper Evelyn Riches. Having taken on the course for a twentieth time, and with family and friends there every step of the way, she crossed the line for the first time under the hour mark! Congratulations, Evelyn! Evelyn was one of eight people recording a personal best this week - well done one and all!

And the eagle-eyed among you will realise that we are just over a month away from our 8th Birthday. Your core team will start kicking around ideas about how we might mark the occasion. While none of us claim to have connections  with senior members of the royal family, or could call in favours from the RAF's Red Arrows,we welcome any suggestions from you Barking regulars about how we could mark the occasion on the last Saturday in July.

This week 122 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 18 were first timers and 8 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 18 different clubs took part.

The event was made possible by 9 volunteers:

Alison FRYATT • Harmander SINGH • Chris HESLEGRAVE • Andy PRESTON • Ita O'CONNOR • Lorraine HILTON • Denise GRAHAM • Leslie JAY • Yolanda CEVEIRA

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

The female record is held by Lydia HALLAM who recorded a time of 17:42 on 12th August 2017 (event number 267).
The male record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded a time of 14:52 on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).
The Age Grade course record is held by Paul MARTELLETTI who recorded 90.47% (14:52) on 25th December 2017 (event number 287).

Barking parkrun started on 28th July 2012. Since then 3,505 participants have completed 28,634 parkruns covering a total distance of 143,170 km, including 4,444 new Personal Bests. A total of 393 individuals have volunteered 4,482 times.