parkrun – 28/02/2026

5 March 2026 - By Steven Alder

This weekend saw Witham RC spread over parkrun events at Colchester Castle, Maldon Prom, Chelmsford Central, Great Notley, Loch Leven, Squerryes Winery, Donaupark (Austria), Markshall Estate, Gibraltar Botanical Gardens (Gibraltar) and Walton Promenade.

Up at Loch Leven the Wallens attended, where Brigid grabbed her 100th parkrun milestone and Tony grabbed his 50th parkrun milestone. They completed the course in 23:41 for Tony and 29:36 for Brigid. Congratulations both!

Essex welcomed a brand new parkrun at Walton Promenade with 268 participants of which 4 of our members went to give the inaugural a try: Daniel Griffiths (21:04 and setting the first course record for SM25-29), Adam Hocken (23:40), Beth Shippey (33:06) and Patrick Hinchliffe (38:31). We will arrange a tourist trip to this parkrun shortly as part of the club – watch out for a post!

Speaking of new parkruns, a new one recently started in Gibraltar, having event 3 at the weekend. As soon as Steven Alder found out that a parkrun was happening, his eyes blinked and the credit card was out and a flight booked – all by accident of course… He completed the course in 30:02. Elsewhere overseas was Giles Sowerby who was in Austria, completing Donaupark in 18:47 where he was the 1st VM45-49 out of 11 – nice work, Giles!

Over at Colchester Castle was Dawn Shilling, completing it in 32:16 whilst Chelmsford Central saw Andrew Smith (20:54), Clive Smith (25:42) and Ross Silverton (32:46). Lysia Jiggins went on to tackle Great Notley in 35:41 with Finn celebrating his birthday. Simon Parsons went on to Markshall Estate in 22:29, whilst being supported by Andrew & Angela Read volunteering. The Beazeleys nipped off to a vineyard, completing Squerryes Winery in 31:22 for Chris and 35:29 for Nichola.

And finally, over at Maldon Prom, we had a very good turnout! Well done to Andrew Lager (23:08 & 1st VM50-54), Dean Whittaker (23:14 & 1st VM45-49 and then Barcode Scanner), Leo Cole (23:46), Bill Smythe (24:41), Steve Hookings (25:35), Mick Conroy (25:40), Ian Lucas (27:30), James Attenborough (27:58), Sian Tate (28:16 and enjoyed grabbing position 101), Anita Grainger (28:54), Chrissy Israel-Jones (30:19), Ian Cuthbert (30:20) and Nicola Digby (38:03).

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parkrun Updates – Name Changes & Apps!

This week sees the last time Markshall Estate parkrun has that name, as it is being completely rebranded with a different name.. it’ll now be called…. drum roll please… Markshall parkrun. Hopefully you won’t get it mixed up. This is due to the location itself having a rebrand.

It should be noted that there are a few unofficial apps for parkrun, because they were lacking one themselves. One became so popular that parkrun themselves employed the developer and it’s now done in house. Hopefully improvements and more functionality are on its way. It has been rebranded this week and been refreshed. Details of the app can be found on their website or the Apple App Store/Google Play Store. They also have the volunteer app which is used for timekeeping and barcode scanning.

An unofficial app (and website) is the parkrace.net site, although it may be easier to navigate on the app version (just enter your parkrun ID). Quite an interesting look, and if you look up your own profile you can see some great stats, and even if you’ve ever held a course record!