by Rhian Bethell
On 22nd July, Great Western Runners took over the volunteering roles at Bristol’s newest parkrun in Blaise Castle.
Blaise Castle Parkrun started on 6th May 2023 and was on its 12th event when GWR took over. A nice two lap course on a mixture of grass, trail and tarmac. Whilst undulating, the hills are much gentler than Eastville or Ashton Court but is more heavily influenced by weather conditions. The new course has proved popular with 376 runners turning up on this day.
Fortunately, it had been dry in the days before so despite the less than summery conditions it was stable underfoot making for an enjoyable run, a lot of soggy smiles captured by volunteer photographer John Cox. The first finisher was Nick Pestell in 18:19, there was a good tussle between GWR brothers Joe and Will Gillett who finished 8th and 10th respectively with less than 10s between them. Thanks to Callum and Maggie for their time keeping skills recording these.
There was a great turnout from GWR on the volunteer roster coordinated by Marco Watts, roles included main race and first timer briefing, marshals, timekeeping, barcode scanning, token sorting, park walker, tail walker and, for the first time at Blaise, pacers. With pacers ranging from 21 to 39 minutes it was great to see groups able to push themselves to the respective times – well done to all pacers. A special shout out to all the marshals and timekeepers that kept encouragement and positivity up despite getting cold and wet.
It was a great morning promoting the club and supporting one of our local parkruns, big thanks to Marco for organising. It was a lot of fun despite the rain and would encourage everyone to volunteer at their local parkrun every once in a while, to help keep them running.
