Castlemaine Parkrun held another great event last Saturday with 124 people taking to the track for a run, walk, or
stroll of the required three laps of our beautiful Botanical Gardens course.
Joe McNeill was the first across in a new PB of 19:48 and he was followed by John Gray, a Castlemaine ‘First Timer’ but parkrun veteran on 20:34 – Joe has 214 events under his belt which is impressive at whatever speed. Next across was Johnny Horrocks, again in a new PB at 20:42.
The first of our female participants to finish was Melissa McGauran in her first ever Castlemaine run at 23:21 and in only her ninth ever run. She was followed by Keely Williams on 24:16 and Bec Percoco just three seconds slower and in a new PB too.
While there were too many ‘First timers’ to individually mention, as in their first time at our event, we should note Gabriel O’Sullivan who ran a terrific 24:25 in his first ever parkrun. He was followed across by Jason Cordy in 24:23, Jen Hendry in 26:02, Abel Davies in 27:08, Helen Ashwell at 32:18, Simone McInerny at 46:02, Jackie Brierley at 50:04, Peter McConvill on 58:46, and Simone Woodrow on 1:03:33 in her first ever event.
This is something to celebrate, the arrival of eight new participants to the parkrun community and we’d like to see each of them become regulars to what is a fantastic community event.
These numbers were augmented by another 20 people who attended our event for the first time, having notched up events at other venues.
By way of contrast, we saw Paul David Sales notch up his 383rd event and Margaret Ann Sales her 381st – a remarkable effort by a couple of parkrun devotees.
Of interest is that of the 18 Personal Bests recorded, the vast majority were gained by relative newcomers, typically people with less than 10 parkruns under their belt.
The volunteer contingent, upon which so much depends was made up of Robyn English, Donna Faircloth, Geoff Faircloth, Marilla Faircloth, Quinn Faircloth, Jane Harding, Ross Jarvis, Dave Petrusma, and Jeff Rogers who got the show on the road – and kept it there. Jane, it should be noted, doubled up as the day’s Run Director and volunteer wrangler – ‘Great Job!’. Castlemaine Parkrun is very well served by its volunteers and in particular the Run Directors who do so much behind the scenes.
If you’d like to join our friendly parkrun community, just register online, turn up for the briefing a bit
before 8am and set off on your own parkrun adventure. We’d love to see you there.