Rachel McGuinness and Dafyd Jay ran the fastest parkrun times in the UK this week (17th December).
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A quick reminder to start this week. Each parkrun event is run by volunteers and it’s important we all do our part, so if you value your local parkrun as a great workout, a social start to the weekend or just want to run against others to push yourself remember you can volunteer some weeks too.
Another week of fast women with three breaking 17 minutes to form our podium. Rachel McGuinness of Crosbie Crew continued just over a year of truly break-out performances with a 16:32 parkrun PB at Pegwell Bay. It was on 12th December 2021 at the Melbourne Marathon that McGuinness went from a 3:06 to a 2:42 marathoner (and then a 2:34:33 marathoner in Valencia a couple of weeks back). It’s exciting to see what 2023 holds for the rising star.
The fastest chap this Saturday was Dafyd Jay, at Cardiff parkrun. It was “only” a 15:20 for the top spot, which is slower than usual for this list, but it is nearly a minute parkrun best for the Welsh U23 athlete. It’s only the second event of 2022 for Jay, with the other bring a parkrun too, but this flying 15:20 might mean we see some cross country in the near future too hopefully!
A burn-up at Cardiff:
Back to Cardiff again for the second and third placed females with Olivia Tsim and Hannah Robinson only seven seconds apart. Tsim was first across the line in 16:52, with Robinson just back in 16:59. It comes not long after Tsim ran a half marathon PB of 73:38 in Copenhagen in September and Robinson ran one in March, also in Cardiff, with 76:21.
At Black Park parkrun it was Luke Birdseye who was the second quickest male. Demonstrating himself to be the captain of the ship, the middle distance runner who excels over the cross country has a new parkrun best of 15:32, which equals his 5k best on the road as well.
At Hove Promenade it was everyone’s favourite footballer/marathoner James Westlake. The England International marathoner, who Hassocks Football Club announced as their’ new first team head coach earlier in the year, ran 15:45 this weekend in a year full of parkrun.
The fastest course?
Sometimes you get a feeling for which course features most when you write the rankings and Cardiff parkrun once again rose to the top again this week with some excellent performances.