
- Credit: Diarmaid Ward
The last parkrun of January started very calmly and with very typical London weather, grey, cold, miserable ... or was it?
In Parkrun terms, it's actually a Colorful group (a field of multi-colored tshirts worn by people from all backgrounds of life), taking in the Perfect weather (5°C was nearly too warm!) for a nice walk, jog or run, maybe a PB (a quarter of those who ran before at HF managed one!), in a Joyful and Friendly atmosphere. Perfect to energise the weekend!
So that means, within a few minutes, the empty fields went from 0 to 514 runners (a fifth joining their first HF parkrun, 33 their first parkrun ever) waiting patiently to get started.
Just a few shout outs to visitors (a loud cheer erupted for Sudan!), then the milestones - Sylvie Bamford (JW10) hit 10 runs and Ali YAZDI joining the 50 club - , details about the newly implemented Double Funnel, the usual SMALL print (in our case, they're big prints; please do follow the instructions, just a few people entering / exiting the funnel in between timing and token collection this week did mean 30+ min delay to sort out results) and a thanks to volunteers (see this week's list below)
... And they're gone


Looking at past data, our runner numbers for January have steadily increased and we are still holding strong at 500 at the end of January! It seems Quitters' day was not on peoples' calendar this year, at least not in January.

- January data - 1st Saturday is 1st after new year period (may fall on different dates)
And it also wasn't in Volunteers' calendars!
Someone told me at the end of the run, "Where else than Parkrun can you find a 100% volunteer-lead event, with most having never volunteered 30min before, manage to setup, manage, close-down and deliver results for an event with this number of people, in just a couple of hours?".
This is all thanks for the growing army of volunteers, and the diligence of runners to follow the sometimes repetitive but oh so important instructions.

So why not volunteer yourself? Volunteering is not just about doing a good deed, or giving back for having run a few parkruns with us, it's also a great experience in it's own right. Why not join us for coffee after the run for a chat, helping out sort the tokens (you get a credit for that!) and understand how you can help out?
Maybe do like Islington Councillor Diarmaid Ward who tweeted "We expect the [Council] team to be fully represented by all members next week ;)" - Why not do the same and invite your friends, family, co-workers or anyone you chat to at some point to join us?
Have a look at the roster; it only shows the next few weeks but you can plan for much later. Then email highburyfields@parkrun.com with your preferred role and barcode (A*****) number.
Cheers!
Laurent Haagsma
This week's Run Director
All the stats
This week 514 people ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 106 were first timers and 91 recorded new Personal Bests. Representatives of 30 different clubs took part.
The event was made possible by 25 volunteers:
Colleen KRENZER • Alex CHASE • John ROBACK • Felix WALLOP • Gill MACASKILL • Peter SCOTT • Jennifer GLASSFORD • Michael SMITH • Eleanor YOUNG • Jerome BOUGHTON MILLS • Luke MILLER • Chris D PEACOCK • Lizzy POLLOTT • Julian OYESIKU • Beatriz MANTEIGAS • Ramona FEDERSCHMID • Emily CONDON • Scarlett PARKER • Felix SAMUELS • Laurent HAAGSMA • Alberto POSE • Paul PARKER • Isaac HALL • Luke FRANKLIN • Max RATHBONE
Today's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Highbury Fields parkrun Results Page.
The female record is held by Teresa MCGLOIN who recorded a time of 17:14 on 4th July 2015 (event number 194).
The male record is held by Seyfu JAMAAL who recorded a time of 15:08 on 25th December 2019 (event number 430).
The Age Grade course record is held by Ros TABOR who recorded 94.10% (22:54) on 16th September 2017 (event number 310).
Highbury Fields parkrun started on 12th November 2011. Since then 16,285 participants have completed 80,803 parkruns covering a total distance of 404,015 km, including 12,769 new Personal Bests. A total of 639 individuals have volunteered 4,763 times.