parkrun – 21/03/2026

26 March 2026 - By Steven Alder

This week we had a little gathering of Witham RC at Walton Promenade parkrun for their 4th event, making us the 3rd most popular group to have attended this location. We were also in attendance at 14 other parkrun locations: Thomas Mills, Ingrebourne Hill, Harwich, Coldham’s Common, Markshall, Stanborough, Maldon Prom, Chelmsford Central, Brentwood, Cardiff, Great Notley, The Cinder Track, Blenheim (New Zealand) and Upton House.

Starting with our biggest turnout for our parkrun tourism meet up at Walton Promenade. Running along lots of colourful beach huts we had Giles Sowerby (19:20, fastest Witham RC of the day), Andrew Smith (19:56), Dan Griffiths (21:40), Trevor Johnson (22:18), Clive Smith (24:08), Glen Waller (24:38), Fiona Collins (24:40 and 1st SW25-29), Ian Lucas (26:41), James Attenborough (26:42), Scott Townsend (27:21), Sian Tate (27:34), Steven Alder (27:35), Lisa Leader (28:28 – double 28s!), Sue Shippey (29:31), Angela Read (30:00 – bang on the minute), Shane Ketteridge (30:10), Andrew Read (32:04), Kerry Townsend (33:14), Ann Johnson (33:45), Beth Shippey (34:08) and Michael Poulter (38:24 and course PB). Also well done to Sian for reaching a parkrun milestone – 25 parkruns. Great work, Sian. Afterwards, quite a few of us attended East Coast 5 for breakfast – yum!

Of course, we still had regular attendance at our favourites… Maldon Prom saw Andy Lager (24:18), Adam Regan (24:20), Steve Hookings (24:39), Mick Conroy (24:54), Liz Atkinson (27:40) and Lysia Jiggins (35:33). Then at Markshall we had Ben O’Leary (30:31), Rachel O’Leary (33:00 – another one bang on the minute) and Patrick Hinchliffe (39:19).

Ingrebourne Hill saw Chriz Beazeley coming in 13th place, with a time of 23:55, whilst in Cambridge was Kevin Harper in 24:48 at Coldham’s Common for his 4th time there. Dawn Shilling completed Harwich in 31:18 and  Geoffrey Reddin went to Stanborough completing that in 28:29.

Nicola Digby was at the busiest parkrun event that all of the Witham RC attendees went to, where they had 890 parkrunners. She completed the course in 34:02 in position 720, the 279th female. Cardiff was actually the 9th busiest parkrun at the weekend across the whole of the UK!

Meanwhile, Leo Cole went off to Suffolk to complete Thomas Mills parkrun in 21:12, finishing in 4th place. Moving a lot further from Suffolk Annalise Etherington went to Blenheim in New Zealand, where she was 4th female and completed the course in 22:40 – her fastest ever parkrun. Also abroad was Gaz, but he only did 1km of the Krakow route in Poland whilst walking/running past!

Our chairperson, Karen Flowers, attended The Cinder Track, Whitby, where she completed the course in 28:10. Gus Maby went to Upton House, in a time of 23:12, whilst Simon Parsons had a time of 22:16 at Great Notley and Jack Welsch had 24:24 in Brentwood (and finidhed 15th out of 108!). Finally, over in Chelmsford was Ian Cuthbert (25:03) and Ross Silverton (31:07).

The full set of results can be found here. Remember to add Witham RC to your parkrun profile so you get picked up for these posts!

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parkrun Challenge – Stayin’ Alive

This is where you need to complete 6 parkrun locations – 3 beginning with B and 3 beginning with G. The Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive (ah ha ha ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive)… Any other musical ones you can think of? Old MacDonald had a Farm… E I E I O?