He's done it - 50 Junior Parkruns

Just over a year ago, J (then aged 13) decided to take up running. After running locally, he decided to try Junior Parkrun (2km run every Sunday morning) before later taking on Parkrun (5km each Saturday), and later joining the local athletics club (where he runs for an hour twice a week and is trained on speed, stamina and technique by his wonderful coach).

Granny and grandad came to support J on his final Junior Parkrun.

Junior Parkrun has a rewards system to help keep their runners motivated. They award wristbands when children complete 11 runs, 21 runs and 50 runs.  A little something to recognise the effort and commitment involved.

Moments before the start...

Earlier this year J worked out that he would need to run every Sunday morning to be able to get the final wristband (50 runs) before his birthday - you see, you can run until the day before your 15th birthday. There was a slight panic when we heard they sometimes have to cancel if there was snow and ice (we had a few anxious Sunday mornings in February waiting to check the conditions!) or if there was a thunderstorm (thankfully rare and they all missed us).

Coming to the end of the first (of two) laps.

Well, tomorrow J turns 15. So today was the last opportunity to run a Junior Parkrun. And he did. He completed his 50th run today, and completely smashed his personal best at the same time! In the past he has been able to chase down some very fast runners, and that has helped him get a new PB. But today they weren't there... yet he still took 6 seconds off his previous best time.

Sprint finish

Well done J - we are so proud of you for your commitment and your dedication, as well as your determination to get that new PB.

The UltraMarathon wristband for completing 50 Junior Parkruns.

For those of you interested, here's J's stats:
First run, 3 June 2018   9mins 18sec
Final run (50th), 23 June 2019    7mins, 31sec
Number of finishes (out of 50) where J came first: 26

A big thank you to the Junior Parkrun volunteers who give up their time to make the event such a success.