parkrun – 07/03/2026 & Lithuanian Special

12 March 2026 - By Steven Alder

This week saw Witham RC members at Colchester Castle, Burnham-on-Crouch, St Andrews, Maldon Prom, Southend, Chelmsford Central, Great Notley, Hove Promenade, Brooklands, Shingashigawa Ukima (Japan), Markshall, Ryan Bonaminio (USA), ARU Writtle, Holywell King George V Playing Fields and Walton Promenade on the Saturday, plus an additional parkrun on the 11th March in Lithuania at Kultūros Ir Poilsio Parkas (Lithuania).

Firstly, Markshall have been renamed from Markshall Estate, with the ‘Estate’ word being dropped, but it does mean they had a shiny new sign! Well done to our runners attending there this week: Simon Parsons (21:49), Scott Townsend (26:20), Ann Johnson (33:50 & 1st VW60-64), Kerry Townsend (40:59) and Karen Flowers (46:02). Also a thank you to Andrew Read and Angela Read for volunteering this week.

Further away than Essex though was Mick Conroy grabbing a bronze finishing place at Ryan Bonaminio parkrun in California, USA, in a time of 23:56, whilst Annalise Etherington was in Japan at Shingashigawa Ukima parkrun where she was 1st lady and completed the course in 23:27. Well done both on your international travels! And also well done on the early starts; Annalise’s parkrun started at 8am whilst Mick’s started at 7:30am!

Time to look at some of the regular courses much closer to home. Colchester Castle saw Patrick Hinchliffe in 38:44 and Adam Hocken in 39:08. Maldon Prom had a nice range of our runners, including Tom Kilbey (21:20 & PB), Andy Lager (23:01), Ian Cuthbert (23:31), Adam Regan (26:27), Liz Atkinson (26:27) and Nadia McLeod (27:52). Over at Southend was Giles Sowerby, completing in 13th place in a time of 19:26.

Elsewhere in Essex, Kevin Harper and Clive Smith completed it in 24:15 and 26:04 respectively, whilst Lysia Jiggins was at Great Notley and completed it in 34:25 with Keith Taylor joining her in 28:44. At ARU Writtle, for their 11th event, was Chris Beazeley in 24:29 and Bethany Shippey in 34:02 – both were attending this location for the first time. At Essex’s newest event was Nicola Digby in 32:34 and Michael Poulter in 42:18.

Sian Tate and James Attenborough went off to Burnham-on-Crouch, where they completed the course together in 28:05 and 28:07, whilst at St Andrews (Scotland) the Wallens went round with Tony completing it in 22:26 and Brigid in 24:49. Nichola Beazeley went off to Brighton to complete Hove Promenade in 25:21 and Dawn Shilling went off to Brooklands and did that in 31:57.

Then both of Witham RC’s major parkrun tourists coinicidentally went off to the same location in Watford, to do Holywell King George V Playing Fields parkrun (bit of a mouthful) for their 7th event. Geoffrey Reddin completed it in 26:44 and this was his 344th parkrun over 232 locations. Steven Alder completed it in 31:40 and this was his 459th parkrun over 365 events. After this, Steven then went off to Lithuania to do another parkrun for their special day, where he completed Kultūros Ir Poilsio Parkas in 29:11 and had to dodge some ice on the course.

The full set of results can be found here for the Saturday and here for the extra in Lithuania.

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parkrun Austria Special Day Announcement

It was recently announced that Austria were finally being given an date for their Special Day for an extra parkrun, which is now going to be the 1st of May. Austria only have a handful of events but were the only parkrun country without a date to do an extra parkrun on (excluding New Year’s Day). However, after being given the date, all of the Austrian parkruns have made the decision that they won’t be holding the extra this year, so don’t go rushing off there to do an extra event quite yet!