Like most things this year, our 9th birthday event was very different from previous years.

As always we had parkrunners & tailwalkers, we shared lots of great photos & we asked for online donations to Islington Foodbank as we were unable to collect food donations in person. The huge difference was that this year's birthday event was virtual, held over 7 days & on any 5k course that parkrunners chose to walk/run/jog.

We are thrilled to report that our birthday event saw 57 parkrunners uploading a (not)parkrun, the highest participation in a Highbury Fields (not)parkrun event to date. Some of these parkrunners were so excited about it being our birthday week that they ran on multiple occasions over the week, meaning that 73 (not)parkruns actually took place. Editor's note: only the fastest time of the week is recorded for each individual parkrunner.

We had 31 first timers & not just 1 but 5 tailwalkers to ensure that nobody was virtually left behind! The former sunken drain made a guest appearance. 3 parkrunners set new PBs. And so great to see Chris Orange & Lizzy Muggeridge on the list of (not)parkrun birthday event finishers, as they were there for our very first parkrun around Highbury Fields 9 years ago.

We'd like to say a huge thank you to Core Team Volunteer Colleen Krenzer who kept us informed throughout the week about our (not)parkrun activities & shared with us some great memories of previous Highbury Fields parkrun birthdays.

If you haven't already made a donation to Islington Foodbank & you are able to do so, please click here

Thank you all for staying connected & involved with us. We wish you all well.

Highbury Fields parkrun

To all of the runners and volunteers who looked out the window on Saturday morning, saw it chucking down and still said "Yep, time for parkrun," you were a pretty marvellous set!

For the first ever 29th of Feb parkrun (and another not happening until 2048), we broke out the baby blue bibs, with 17 people stepping up to act as pacers for once-every-28-years-event. Thanks to their steady efforts, 11% of the 257 people who ran, jogged and walked the course recorded a Personal Best! We also celebrated as Maren ECKHOFF reached a massive 100 parkruns milestone!

Our anomaly of no Australian representation last week righted itself (phew). Mixed in among our 60 first timers was Anna ALISTAIR (Main Beach parkrun), who stopped in to join us as she makes her way to Cheltenham, where she'll start her medical internship. Ian McGorry (Dunfermline parkrun), visiting from Scotland, seemed right at home in the sogginess. In total, we had people from 27 different parkruns joining in the muddy madness.

PSA - we had 22 unknowns this week - please remember to register with parkrun and print out your personal barcode, which you can use at any parkrun worldwide.

Reminder - next Saturday, we'll celebrate International Women's Day with #IWDparkrun. Invite your female friends, family and colleagues to come join us for the day - either as participants or volunteers. You can find all the details about the day here.

And speaking of volunteering - how about the 44 volunteers who made the event possible? YES! This week's volunteers included:

Lizzy MUGGERIDGE • Ben CLARKE-JANSSEN • Martin BLACK • Colin WILKINS • Matthew HUGGETT • Colleen KRENZER • David BARNETT • Olivia DESBOROUGH • Nadi JAHANGIRI • Danny OLIVE • Jessica VINLUAN • Victoria BRISCOE • Deborah ROBACK • Joanne HISLOP • Andrew MCGEARY • John ROBACK • Felix WALLOP • James HISLOP • Emma COOPER • David RANK • Alex FUNK • Jennifer GLASSFORD • Michael SMITH • Jerome BOUGHTON MILLS • Luke MILLER • Thomas DEABILL • Victoria FARRELL • Ruby SAMUELS • Chris D PEACOCK • Haidee O'DONNELL • Rebecca PALLOT • Lizzy POLLOTT • Beatriz MANTEIGAS • Ciaran MCNAMEE • Scarlett PARKER • Matthew WELSH • Faith BUCK • Laurent HAAGSMA • Alberto POSE • Fergus GRAY • Anthony TAMA • Isaac HALL • Luke FRANKLIN • Ben NETTLETON

The day's full results and a complete event history can be found on the Highbury Fields parkrun Results Page.

With that, I hand my crown over to Jen GLASSFORD, who will act as Run Director next week.

Colleen

Back in 2013 when this non-runner was persuaded by her daughter to try a new thing called parkrun, little did I know the impact it would have on me over the years! Fast forward 7 years and today I stood in front of 420 runners and 26 volunteers as Run Director for the first time.

In those 7 years my whole family has become involved in Highbury Fields parkrun, both running and volunteering. And I for one don’t pass up any opportunity to spread the word, to encourage people to come along and try it out, to run or walk (or anything in between) the 5 and a bit laps of our course!

This morning, after a week off while we sheltered from Storm Dennis, we were lucky to just about escape the bad weather again. We welcomed 94 first timers to the fields - of those, 32 were taking part in their very first parkrun, while 62 were tourists. Unusually we had no visitors from Australia, this week’s visitors coming from much closer to home (lots of London and Home Counties tourists) and others from all over the UK and Ireland.

79 of our number were marked as unknown - please remember to register with parkrun and print out your personal barcode which you can use at any parkrun worldwide.

Congratulations are in order for 47 of you who achieved personal bests today. Included in that number is junior runner Luke TOMLINSON, who also reached his milestone 10 runs (for junior runners only).

Other milestones include Vincent LUC and Martin NELSON - 50 runs. Stephen WEST and Amelia LITTLE - 100 runs

An extra special congratulations goes to Ben CLARKE-JANSSEN. Today Highbury Fields stalwart Ben ran his 250th parkrun (150 of these have been around Highbury Fields) on his 30th birthday. Well done and happy birthday!

Ben has also volunteered an impressive 186 times, mostly at our event and the junior event on Sundays. Thank you Ben from us all, we really appreciate your dedication.

On the subject of volunteers, we are always in need of help each Saturday in order to deliver the event safely. If you would like a week off running every now and again, to see how the event works from the other side, please do get in touch with us. We’d love to see you out of running kit! Take a look at the volunteer roster here then email us at highburyfields@parkrun.com with your name and parkrun ID starting with the letter A, telling us when you can volunteer. You'll get a full explanation of your volunteer role on the day and no experience is needed for most roles.

Today’s event was made possible by a team of 26 volunteers - thank you to all of you for making my job as RD today so pleasurable!

Lizzy MUGGERIDGE • Mark GEORGE • Eamon BYRNE • Ali YAZDI • Deborah ROBACK • Joanne HISLOP • John ROBACK • David FALLON • James HISLOP • Ted HISLOP • Alex FUNK • Michael GRAY • Maren ECKHOFF • Lizzy POLLOTT • Beatriz MANTEIGAS • Ramona FEDERSCHMID • Felix SAMUELS • Laurent HAAGSMA • Stephen WEST • Judith GRIEVES • Paul PARKER • Judith HIGGIN • Lucas GRELA • Catherine MCGRATH • Luke FRANKLIN • Max RATHBONE

Results for Event #439 and a full event history can be found here

Remember how I mentioned at the start of this report how parkrun has become a bit of a family affair? Well back in 2014, my son Ted, age 11 at the time, wanted to help his dad James at parkrun. So he was given the new role of finish token support on a beautiful summer’s day with just over 100 runners. Today, now a bit taller (although James insists he was standing in a dip), he was supporting his dad again in the very same role! Same parkrun, rather more runners, but exactly the same ethos - free, for everyone, forever. Help us continue with this by opting in to receive emails from us, so that you know when we need volunteers and when we are hosting special events. You can opt in when you receive your results email or through your personal parkrun profile.

Talking of which, don't forget:

- February 29th Pacers Event. Anyone chasing a PB from 19 to 40 minutes, this could be your day!

- March 7th parkrun celebration of International Women's Day. An all-female volunteer team (lots of roles still available) combined with an aim of encouraging as many women and girls to take part as possible. Join us and bring a female friend, colleague or family member. More information can be found on social media or check our news page here

Your RD for this week,

Jo

On Saturday we were really proud to find out that nearly 1 in 5 of our parkrunners were brand new to parkrun. We hope you enjoyed it and will be back soon with a friend, partner, loved-one, baby in a pram or even a dog - everyone is welcome! In addition to the 96 first timers, 80 people recorded new personal bests, people from 39 different clubs attended and 499 people completed the 5-and-a-bit laps. Not bad for a blustery day in February!

We also cannot forget that the event was made possible by 26 volunteers who's names are listed below:

Khara MILLS-HAUNCH • Eamon BYRNE • Colleen KRENZER • Jessica VINLUAN • Jonathan LITCHFIELD • Joanne HISLOP • Felix WALLOP • Thomas WHITE • Michael GRAY • Jennifer GLASSFORD • Michael SMITH • Eleanor YOUNG • Luke MILLER • Chris D PEACOCK • Haidee O'DONNELL • Ramona FEDERSCHMID • Scarlett PARKER • Felix SAMUELS • Laurent HAAGSMA • Minnie RINVOLUCRI • Henry CAMPBELL • Emma MCFADDEN • Fergus GRAY • Isaac HALL • Luke FRANKLIN • Max RATHBONE

We really do rely on our volunteers to make the event happen - particularly when it's so busy - so if you fancy giving volunteering a go, please get in touch. From time keeping to barcode scanning, there are lots of roles available and you'll be given full training beforehand. It's also a great way to meet people and my favourite way to start the weekend - nothing like a bit of cheering to give you a Saturday morning boost! So if you're new to the area, looking for a volunteering opportunity or just want to find out more, get in touch.

We've also got some exciting news; in just under 4 weeks time on 7 March, we're joining This Girl Can - a campaign created by our partner, Sport England - to celebrate International Women's Day. We'd love to see as many women and girls join us to walk, jog, run or volunteer. If you're new to parkrun and want to come but feel a bit daunted for whatever reason, get in touch and let us know how we can help. If there's a desire for it, we'll also try and partner new people up with regulars so that you don't have to walk, jog or run by yourself. We're also going to have an all-female volunteer team on the day too so if you want to be part of it, email us: higburyfields@parkrun.com.

And lastly, the results and a complete event history can be found on the Highbury Fields parkrun Results Page.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions for things you'd like to read about in this blog moving forward, get in touch and let us know.

Haidee

We started our February with a impressive 514 people, some ran, some jogged and some walked. Amongst these people, 93 were first timers and there where 64 people who managed to achieve Personal Bests. The weather was wonderfully fresh and the sun was out. As usual we had a friendly atmosphere of people starting the weekends with parkrun.

We had a selection of visitors from a range of places coincidentally all starting with the letter B - Bristol, Brazil and Berlin. It was also great to see Dairmaid Ward with a number of his Islington Council colleagues - and very excited that he is trying to get all 48 of them to come to a future event.

We also cannot forget that the event was made possible by all the volunteers below:

Lizzy MUGGERIDGE • Ben CLARKE-JANSSEN • Martin BLACK • Matthew HUGGETT • Megan FISHER • Felix WALLOP • Gill MACASKILL • Michael GRAY • Jennifer GLASSFORD • Eleanor YOUNG • Marina HARDEN • Jerome BOUGHTON MILLS • Maren ECKHOFF • Ruby SAMUELS • Lizzy POLLOTT • Beatriz MANTEIGAS • Ramona FEDERSCHMID • Felix SAMUELS • Laurent HAAGSMA • Minnie RINVOLUCRI • Caroline SHAW • Fergus GRAY • Bryan WALL • Isaac HALL • Luke FRANKLIN • Max RATHBONE

They all put their best efforts in doing a variation of roles from timekeeping the large amount of people to marshalling. It is always great to see new volunteers so please give it a try.

Ruby

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

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.

The New Year's Resolutions & record breaking attendance numbers continued in N5 this morning, with an impressive 579 people running, jogging or walking the course. The fact that 133 were first timers shows the commitment to those New Year plans. Despite the extremely crowded course, 89 parkrunners managed to record a new Personal Best.

Thanks to everyone who patiently waited in the finishing funnel & followed the directions of our volunteers who tried their very best to move everyone along as quickly as possible. Next week we will be implementing a Double Funnel so please listen out for the pre-run announcement by the Run Director as to how it will work.

As one of our regular parkrunners, Islington Councillor Diarmaid Ward tweeted, today we welcomed "a full complement of councillors"; we are absolutely thrilled with how supportive Islington Council are of our event. Could they also have been checking out how we do things in advance of the Islington Council Volunteer Takeover on March 28th?

Milestones this week were celebrated by David MACNAMARA (50), Tim CROOK (50), Kate Oliver (50) & Lindsay MCDERMOTT (150).

The event was made possible by 29 volunteers & a high-viz wearing canine tailwalker:

Khara MILLS-HAUNCH • Ben CLARKE-JANSSEN • Martin BLACK • James WHITE • Stephen HEY • Danny OLIVE • Deborah ROBACK • Joanne HISLOP • Andrew MCGEARY • John ROBACK • Felix WALLOP • Jennifer GLASSFORD • Michael SMITH • Eleanor YOUNG • Maren ECKHOFF • Christina HOPKINSON • Ruby SAMUELS • Julian OYESIKU • Yuki OYESIKU • Beatriz MANTEIGAS • Conny OYESIKU • Scarlett PARKER • Lorna HOBBS • Felix SAMUELS • Stephen WEST • Shanti KELEMEN • Bryan WALL • Isaac HALL • Luke FRANKLIN

With the increase in parkrunners comes an increased need for volunteers. Please take a look at the volunteer roster here & let us know if you are able to help by emailing highburyfields@parkrun.com

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found here

Other than falling over in the muddy finishing funnel & getting hit in the mouth by the megaphone it was a pleasure to be your Run Director today!

Have a great week everyone.

Deborah Roback
Co-Event Director

Saturday’s parkrun was pretty special. We knew it would be a busy one when we looked across the park to see a sea of high vis, lycra-clad people gathered at the start line but we didn’t know that we’d have the highest number of parkrunners since (our) records began!

In total, 571 people from 34 different clubs ran, jogged and walked the course, of whom 130 were first timers. That’s a lot of people committing their New Years resolutions! Among those, 44 achieved shiny new personal bests.

We also had a small army of volunteers who made the event possible. They were:

Khara MILLS-HAUNCH • Ben CLARKE-JANSSEN • Colleen KRENZER • Jack DAY • Jessica VINLUAN • Jonathan LITCHFIELD • Deborah ROBACK • Brahma POCHEE • Joanne HISLOP • John ROBACK • Felix WALLOP • Thomas WHITE • William ROSS • Jennifer GLASSFORD • Michael SMITH • Eleanor YOUNG • Jerome BOUGHTON MILLS • Luke MILLER • Chris D PEACOCK • Haidee O'DONNELL • Julian OYESIKU • Beatriz MANTEIGAS • Felix SAMUELS • Laurent HAAGSMA • Gail DAVISON • Henry CAMPBELL • Emma MCFADDEN • Paul PARKER • Elizabeth KOHLER • Isaac HALL

But there were also a few unsung heroes who stepped in to help when things got really busy. If you were one of them, thank you so much for your help. We hugely appreciate it. If we could bottle up that spirit and sell it, we’d be straight on Dragon’s Den!

Here are some fun facts about Highbury Fields parkrun:

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 16,047 participants have completed 79,710 parkruns covering a total distance of 398,550 km, including 12,589 new Personal Bests. A total of 637 individuals have volunteered 4,709 times.

Saturday's results and a complete event history can be found on the Highbury Fields parkrun Results Page.

Thanks so much to everyone for making Saturday a special day and see you this weekend.

Haidee (Saturday’s run director) x

Of the 482 people who ran, jogged and walked our winter sunlit course today, 122 were first timers who had opted to rename their first Saturday of the New Year 'parkrunday'. Despite the somewhat crowded course (understatement), 47 parkrunners managed to record new Personal Bests. Tourists came from near & far, including Saltaire (West Yorkshire), Croydon, Walthamstow, South Africa & as always Australia.

3 parkrunners celebrated their 50th parkrun milestone; tourists David BRADBURY & Fiona WATT, plus Caroline MCGRAW who threw in a PB for good measure.

The event was made possible by 23 volunteers, plus quite a few other parkrunners who got involved in various roles as soon as they had finished running:

Lizzy MUGGERIDGE • Ben CLARKE-JANSSEN • Colleen KRENZER • Jack DAY • Jessica VINLUAN • Deborah ROBACK • Andrew MCGEARY • John ROBACK • Felix WALLOP • Jennifer GLASSFORD • Michael SMITH • Eleanor YOUNG • Jerome BOUGHTON MILLS • Chris PEACOCK • Ruby SAMUELS • Neil HOSKEN • Scarlett PARKER • Alberto POSE • Gail DAVISON • Stephen WEST • Elizabeth KOHLER • Bryan WALL • Susie JOLLY

Massive thanks go to each & every one of the volunteers - parkrun simply could not happen without them. We are anticipating an increase in numbers for the rest of this month, so we will need volunteers more than ever! Please take a look at the roster here & if you are able to volunteer rather than run, email us with your parkrun ID (starting with the letter A) & we will happily add you to the volunteer roster: highburyfields@parkrun.com

Today's full results and a complete event history can be found here

Have a great week!

Your Run Director today, Deborah Roback

(photo credit Lizzy Muggeridge)