This weekend it was a whopping 50 weeks since parkrun was paused worldwide due to the Coronavirus pandemic. I don’t think that back in March 2020 any of us would have guessed that the pause would last for quite so long as it has. Back in the summer of 2020, Walthamstow parkrunners – and some virtual tourists from other parkruns – came together virtually to create a rainbow of hope by wearing the colours of the rainbow when out running, a different colour each week. We hoped that parkrun would return by the time we had reached ‘violet’ week and this was our rainbow wave of hope, but alas this was not to be.
So this week, to mark the 50 weeks of parkrun pause, we again asked Walthamstow parkrunners to come together again and wear red – the colour of the milestone t-shirt awarded once a parkrunner has completed 50 parkruns. And once again you rose to the occasion and turned Walthamstow red. We also had virtual tourists from Newbury, South and North Wales and our first international virtual tourist from Schwanenteich parkrun in Germany!
Lots of you chose to run in Lloyd Park on parkrunday, where the weather looked beautiful. Forming the Lloyd Park Posse we have Penny Wiles, Rachel Emmett, Tom and Emma Hardy, Clare Laine, Gail Seal, Dermot Hughes, Janine Durrant and Steve Peacock, the latter who marked the occasion by getting a shiny new (not)parkrun PB!
Janine Durrant might have run at Lloyd Park, but she was not deserted by other members of the family as Lynne Durrant, Darren Lamb, and Jamie Lamb were also out and about in red at the weekend – Jamie, I hope you wore shoes for your 5k! Jamie appears to have grown even taller during lockdown too!
There were other places to run other than Lloyd Park – I missed the sunny weather as was working night shifts but managed to get out at sunset to Hollow Ponds, meanwhile at another watery destination a shy Ruby Daly was running on Walthamstow Wetlands. Richard and Lance Selby took their ‘red’ picture of themselves outside the locked gates of the Peter May Centre. Meanwhile, Steve Bywater made a rare appearance before noon on a Saturday – he’s going to need to practice getting back into the habit of early starts on parkrunday soon we hope!
Being injured didn’t stop the indomitable Liz Worrall from getting out for a walk in her milestone tee – Liz, we hope you’re back running strong soon. And if we’re talking indomitable, you can’t beat Ellis Sharman for fighting spirit, as only a couple of days after being in hospital he made it out for his first run in 3 weeks and smashed it in a time of 27:19. Onwards and upwards, Ellis.
And finally to our virtual tourists: Karen Spackman from Newbury with her two four-legged friends, Elizabeth Czaban from Penallta in South Wales, Anthony Howe from Conway in North Wales, and Janina Rüht all the way from Schwanenteich parkrun in Germany – lovely to see you all, and thank you for joining in.
Over the whole week 20 parkrunners ran 35 (not)parkruns in an average time of 30:52 minutes. For the 9th week running, Patrick Brown logged the fastest time overall in a time of 18:03 minutes, whilst the fastest female was Anna Morgan in a time of 23:17 which is a new (not)parkrun PB for her – well done, Anna. Also getting shiny new (not)parkrun PBs this week were Simon Ormerod, Steve Peacock and Anne-Marie Kennedy – congratulations all. Here are all our red runners on a collage:
So although we were marking 50 weeks since parkrun paused, on Friday came the announcement that we have all been waiting for – a proposed date for parkrun to return of Saturday 5th June. This is, of course, all being well and things progressing with the ‘roadmap’ out of lockdown restrictions. Read all about it here: Restarting parkrun in England | parkrun UK Blog and also listen to the latest episode of the Free Weekly Timed podcast – a link to which is in the blog.
So hopefully ‘our’ tree at the Peter May, visited by Andrew Howard who posted this picture to our facebook page, won’t be lonely for much longer!
See the full results for the week here: results | Walthamstow parkrun
Stay safe everyone – we’ll get through this together.
Ali Sheppard
Walthamstow (not)parkrun history
The female (not)parkrun record is held by Corinna O’Sullivan who recorded a time of 20:09 at event #15.
The male (not)parkrun record is held by Patrick Brown who recorded a time of 17:32 at event #34.
The age grade (not)parkrun record is held by Gail Hennessy who recorded an amazing 86.96% (24:03) at event #3.
(not)parkrun is a temporary replacement for parkrun which will start again when it is safe to do so.
For more information about (not)parkrun go to http://parkrun.me/ywtjv