parkrun – 17/01/2026

22 January 2026 - By Steven Alder

This week saw Witham RC runners at Maldon Prom, Gunpowder, Chelmsford Central, Wimpole Estate, Clacton Seafront, Ormeau, Brentwood, Great Notley, Mersea Island, Mountlucas, Markshall Estate and Christchurch Park.

Markshall Estate were celebrating their 200th parkrun this week, with over 350 attendees at the event! From Witham RC though, we had Simon Parsons (21:41), Scott Townsend (27:48), Dawn Shilling (30:49), Karen Flowers (33:21), Ann Johnson (33:46), Kerry Townsend (35:47), Beth Shippey (36:24), Nicola Digby (36:29), Patrick Hinchliffe (37:51) and Sue Shippey (45:48). We also had Andrew & Angela Read volunteering at this event welcoming new parkrunners and toursits, scanning barcodes and keeping an eye on the finish line. Well done to Kerry Townsend who achieved her 50th parkrun milestone at Markshall Estate!

Maldon Prom, another one of Witham RC’s favourites, saw Leo Cole (21:09), Dean Whittaker (23:06), Vicki Riley (25:13), Andy Lager (25:17), Steve Hookings (25:28), Mick Conroy (26:48) and Ross Silverton (33:24). Volunteering at Maldon Prom was Dean Whittaker and Lysia Jiggins. Staying locally to Witham we also Andrew Smith (22:57), Nadia McLeod (25:10) and Fiona Collins (29:14) in Chelmsford Central and also Michael Poulter completing Clacton Seafront in 30:46.

Over in Northern Ireland was Gus Maby visiting Ormeau, completing the course in Belfast in 22:05. Whilst we look over at Ireland, Steven Alder was in the Republic of Ireland completing Mountlucas (around a wind farm) in 28:04. Perhaps we should rename it Mount Ian Lucas after our Kit Secretary. Speaking of Ian, he could be found this week much closer to home than Steven and Gus, as he remained in Essex at Mersea Island, completing the course in 26:54.

Giles Sowerby finished in 13th place in a field of 293 parkrunners at Gunpowder in 18:23. Meanwhile at the one lap course on the Wimpole Estate, 111th place saw Geoffrey Reddin finishing in 27:46. Brentwood saw Jack Welch visiting for the 5th time, where he came top in the SM25-29 age category in 24:34.

Over at Great Notley we had Bill Smythe (24:16) coming in 25th, and keeping the 2 and the 5 in the position number, adding a 6, we saw Mike Struthers (56:51) in 256th place. And finally, over in Ipswich we saw Adam Hocken grabbing himself a course PB of 25:28 at Christchurch Park.

The full set of results can be found here. Make sure you add Witham RC to your parkrun profile so you appear in the results (we can’t add it for you).

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parkrun Challenge – Every date of the year and each day of the week

Another challenge, although this one requires a lot of time (it’ll take years to do!). This is where you complete a parkrun on every day of the year (ie all 366 dates from 01/01 to 31/12). You won’t be able to do this quickly though, as you’d need to have done a minimum of 366 parkruns to start with, and that’s if you don’t even repeat a date. Bit of a challenge to collect 29th February – the next Saturday on that date is in 2048 and if you miss that you’ll have to wait until 2076! Of course, some managed to grab this date in 2020, which is the only time a parkrun has happened on that date. You’d better put 29/02/2048 in the diary now…

Alternatively, you can do a parkrun every day of the week (Monday through to Sunday). Saturday is easy to pick up, and New Year’s Day just gone was a Thursday. If you do enough Christmas/NYD specials you’ll eventually get all the non-Saturdays, although you can speed it along by doing Special Events in other countries. This year you could potentially get every day apart from Tuesday, which you could grab in Japan in 2027 if you were so inclined!