Castlemaine Parkrun has established a tradition of running their normal Saturday event, and backing that up with another on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day too.
In 2022 the special days fell on a Sunday, so on both these weekends the organisation ran two parkruns. As reported in Tuesday’s Midland Express the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day events were very well attended and there was once again a terrific attendance for the final parkrun of 2022 on New Year’s Eve and the first one of 2023 on New Year’s Day with a total of over 130 participants taking part over the two events.
Glen Taylor, not content with Kyan McGill beating him over the line on Saturday, capped off an excellent weekend and saw in the new year in style by coming across in first place on New Year’s Day.
Sandra Browne in her first run at Castlemaine had been the first female to complete the 5km course on Saturday and Sophie Elsworth, a parkrun veteran, was the first female runner over the line on Sunday.
Congratulations to all of the first place finishers – but congratulations also to everyone who turned out to run, walk or stroll the course, no matter what time they achieved.
Over the two events there were, once again, plenty of Personal Bests: always a gratifying conclusion for the individual involved.
Saturdays PBs went to Dean Podger, Emily Maher, Brad Mcdowell, Carmel Lind, and Stuart Lind.
Importantly, and in keeping with the parkrun ethos, not all of these PBs were from the fastest runners, many of them were achieved by people who run more modest times – all of them are equally important though and parkrun celebrates them equally.
There was a brace of PBs on Sunday too; impressive given the smaller turnout. Dean Podger followed up his PB of the day earlier with another one; back-to-back personal bests has to be hard to beat! And Craig Mackenzie also managed a PB for the day. ‘Well Done’ to all of them.
We welcomed Brianna Jury, and Parker Williams to the Castlemaine Parkrun community on their first ever events – hopefully we will see lots more of them over the coming months.
Of course there was a big volunteer contingent given we ran on successive days. Ronder Clayton, Dianne Cox, Donna Faircloth, Jane Harding, Judy Hill, Peter Hill, Colin Moore, Anna Scott, Bonnie Scott, Harry Scott, Michelle Scott, and Karina Taylor managed the event for Saturday and Ronder Clayton, Geoff Faircloth, Jane Harding, Steve Harris, Judy Hill, Alan Hollensen, Nicole Mcivor, Anna Scott, Bonnie Scott, Harry Scott, Michelle Scott, and Karina Taylor got the show on the road on Sunday.
Ronder, Judy, and Karina turned out on both days to assist, with Jane working her magic as volunteer wrangler to make sure everything ran smoothly. It did, as always. A special mention to the Scott family for their great work over both runs – ‘Thanks!’
Thanks to this small army of people who give up their own chance for a run/walk in the park to assist the rest of us. Your efforts were appreciated over the two days.
If you’d like to join the crew at Castlemaine Parkrun simply register online and print off a barcode, then turn up for the briefing a bit before 8am at the larger carpark at the Botanical Gardens for the briefing. It is completely free of charge, and we’d love to welcome you.