parkrun – 14/02/2026

16 February 2026 - By Steven Alder

Hope everybody had a wonderful weekend and everyone is all loved up, especially if you completed a parkrun on Valentine’s Day! This week we attended locations at Basildon, Coventry, Colchester Castle, Wanstead Flats, Chelmsford Central, Great Notley, South Woodham Ferrers, Swaffham, Loch Leven, Lingwood, Markshall Estate, Greenwich Peninsula and ARU Writtle. One of Witham RC’s favourites, Maldon Prom, didn’t take place this weekend.

A big well done to Giles Sowerby who travelled to Norfolk and claimed the first finisher position at Swaffham parkrun in 19:14 in a field of 47 parkrunners. This is the fourth time Giles has managed to grab Position 1 at parkrun, all at different locations. Elsewhere in Norfolk was Geoffrey Reddin completing Lingwood in 23:56.

In Essex this week, Ross Silverton took to Basildon and completed in a satisfying number ‘doubles’ of 33:55.  Colchester Castle saw Adam Hocken (26:07), Dawn Shilling (32:31) and Patrick Hinchliffe (38:55). At Chelmsford Central, Jack Welch came 101st after completing it in 23:22 whilst Great Notley had Lysia Jiggins (35:31) and Mike Struthers (57:10).

Sticking to Essex, Andy Lager had a Top 10 finish, grabbing 9th place at South Woodham Ferrers in 24:21 (and first in VM50-54). We welcome back Markshall Estate with a new route and Andrew Read as RD, along with Angela Read as Volunteer Co-ordinator/Barcode Scanner, Monty as timekeeper and Ann Johnson & Shane Ketteridge as Marshals. Completing the course were 297 people, but from Witham was Christine Israel-Jones (29:11 and a course PB), Ian Cuthbert (29:11), Karen Flowers (29:14), Sue Shippey (33:02) and Beth Shippey (36:41).

ARU Writtle had Tyler Hodges (20:26), Vicki Riley (24:25) and Gerry Greenwold (26:00). All three of them were visiting ARU Writtle for the first time, although it is only that parkrun’s 8th event! Tyler attempted a nice strong final sprint, only to have a slight tumble – but couldn’t have been too bad, as he did still make it to XC the next day in shiny white spiked shoes (I don’t think they’re that colour anymore).

Over in London was Steven Alder at Wanstead Flats in 31:05 and Dean Whittaker at Greenwich Peninsula completed his 25th different location in a pair of numbers time of 22:33. Up towards the north was Anita Grainger completing Coventry in 27:41. Travelling further north to Scotland saw Tony and Brigid Wallen complete Loch Leven in 23:53 and 26:11 (respectively).

The full set of results can be found here. Make sure you add Witham RC to your parkrun profile to be included!

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Valentines parkrun

Whilst no-one from Witham RC is showing as attended this parkrun, it was very well attended over the weekend, where they broke their course record and had 2,331 participants and 66 volunteers. This was the 6th highest attendance of a UK parkrun since they started (the top 5 all being Bushy parkrun) and 10th highest in the world, with only 3 events having higher records than 2,331 – Bushy, North Beach (South Africa) and Gilloolys (South Africa). Excluding unknowns, 1,685 people completed Valentines parkrun for their first time at this location (25 for their very first parkrun). And perhaps not surprisingly, a proposal did take place at the end of Valentines parkrun over the weekend – congratulations to them! The next time Valentines Day falls on a Saturday is 2032 – why not add it to your diary now?