Thurso parkrun welcomed 2022 with a New Year’s Day parkrun.

We had an amazing 66 people turn up at 9.30am to run and walk. We also had three otters join us, playing in the river, which gave much joy to our volunteers and parkrunners.

We had 13 first timers including tourists from Dunfermline, Glasgow, Winchester, Inverness and Hillsborough, Northern Ireland. We hope that our local first timers join us again very soon. There were 3 personal bests, what a way to start your new year! Well done to Graeme Bremner, Sheila Smith and Catherine Lamont.

First over the line was Kevin Cormack in 18.43, followed by Bryan Newlands and Adam Critchley. First female was Sheila Smith in 23.38, 2nd female was Marnie Ker and 3rd female was Jennifer Bremner. First junior was visitor was Joe Capwell, who normally runs at Inverness / Torvean.

Bryan Newlands reached his 50th parkrun milestone and Leonard Zabek reached his 200th parkrun milestone. Congratulations to both of you!

A big thank you to Rebecca SINCLAIR, Aileen SIMMONITE, Marie CUTHBERT, Sophie CUTHBERT, Andrew CUTHBERT, Ruan PEAT, Kerrie MACKENZIE, Mairi CLASPER, Tony CHALMERS, Colleen WOTHERSPOON, John CUTHBERT, Andrew CRAWFORD, Ellie CUTHBERT and Frederick BRADLEY for volunteering.

Lynne and Leonard Zabek who joined us from Dunfermline very kindly took along tablet for all the volunteers and the sweet treats were greatly appreciated, thank you both.

Liz Black was celebrating her 60th birthday on New Year’s Day and shared the birthday joy with providing tablet for all the parkrunners. Thanks Liz and we hope you enjoyed the rest of your birthday.

Happy parkrunning in 2022

Thurso parkrun returned on 14 August 2021 after 15 long months away. We returned on our 100th event and have had 18 parkrun events in 2021. We have had 1,388 finishes over these events. Our largest event was our return with 111 parkrunners, our smallest attendance has been 58 parkrunners which we have had 4 times, including the last three events of 2021.

Kevin Cormack and Marnie Ker share the prize of most first finishes in 2021, with both of them finishing first 3 times. We have 5 new age category records as we finish 2021, JM15-17 Alastair Rushforth 17.12, VM65-69 Roger Hoymer 21.49, SM20-24 Alexander Robert Aldridge 17.25, VM55-59 Glynn Thomas 20.05 and VW70-74 Alison J Smith 30.38.

We had our first person, Leslie Mackay, who started parkrunning when Thurso parkrun started reach their 100th milestone. Congratulations Les! We have had a number of 50 milestones, even more 25 milestones and some junior 10 milestones, congratulations to everyone who reached milestones!

Iain Teven reached his 100th volunteering milestone, an amazing achievement and shows Iain's commitment to Thurso parkrun. Congratulations and thank you Iain!

parkrun in 2021 was brought to you by 249 volunteers. This year we were delighted to have Aileen Simmonite join us as a Run Director. We also had Duke of Edinburgh volunteers and a Saltire Award volunteer join us for the first time.

To everyone who has ran, walked and volunteered at Thurso parkrun since we re-started, thank you for being involved, it’s been the best being back!

Thurso parkrun #109 took 58 people out to run and walk on Saturday morning.

We had 5 first timers including parkrun tourists Craig Anderson and Sarah McAnish both from Livingston parkrun. Craig also got some tourism volunteering in, joining Fiona on barcode scanning once he has finished his run. Thank you Craig!

Two of the first timers did their first ever parkrun and we hope to see them back soon.

There were 12 personal bests, a massive congratulations to Charlie Sutherland, Lewis Sutherland, Allan Sutherland (good breakfast choices in the Sutherland household on Saturday I think!!), David Rosie, Karen Graham, James Henderson, Mairi Nicolson, Corrina Milligan, Chloe Mackay, Nicola Cameron, Andy Smith and Sophie Leslie.

First male over the line was Kevin Cormack, first female was Carly Erridge and first junior was Charlie Sutherland.

You may be noticing that there are some additional milestone symbols on the parkrun results. There are now volunteering milestones for 50, 100, 250 and 500, and 10 for our juniors. Vicki, Iain and myself were proudly wearing our v50 t-shirts on Saturday! There is also 25 for running.

A massive thank you to our volunteers, who as always did a great job:

Craig ANDERSON • Martine HUGHES • Vicki TEVEN • Fiona ANGUS • Aileen SIMMONITE • Iain TEVEN • Keith BRAMHALL • Mairi CLASPER • Emma TAGGART • Colleen WOTHERSPOON • John CUTHBERT • Mirissa EFEMEY • Lucy KING • Karyn TEVEN

Good news is that we have enough volunteers to have enough confidence to go ahead with parkrun on New Year’s Day. It will be our usual time and we can’t think of a better way to start 2022.

One last plea from me, please, please be quiet during our pre-run brief. We have lots of important messages to get across to you and would really appreciate that you pause your chat for a couple of minutes. Thank you for your support with this.

Donna

Thurso parkrun RD #109