Innes FitzGerald and Jake Barraclough ran the fastest parkrun times in the UK this week (Thursday 25 & Saturday 27 December).

It has become a festive tradition for many, and what’s better than being able to do one parkrun in a week? The opportunity to do two in 48 hours! It also feels an apt time to say a (belated) Merry Christmas with a return of the Fast Running Top 10 articles. The Christmas parkrun tradition is applicable to runners of all abilities. Plenty of record attendance figures were set and some particularly fast times feature at the top of the rankings.

Innes FitzGerald tops the women’s rankings with 15:47 at her home event of Seaton on Christmas Day. Less than a fortnight beforehand, Innes won her third consecutive European Cross Country Championships title. Closer to home, she set a Course Record with her first time under sixteen minutes after twenty previous visits. Innes’s time is impressive given part of the course, including the start and finish, are on a pebbled beach.

On the men’s side, the fastest time this week came on Saturday from Jake Barraclough at Battersea Park. It was a rare parkrun outing for the popular Youtuber – and a debut appearance at Battersea Park. Quite the debut and only the twelfth time the event has been won in under fifteen minutes.

Best of the Rest

A 14:47 at Tidworth parkrun places Jake Smith second on this week’s double rankings. It was Jake’s second visit to Tidworth, his first coming at the start of the year. To put that time into some context, Saturday’s first finisher was almost five minutes slower. We return to South London to complete the men’s podium where Dillon Hobbs, another Battersea debutant, ran 14:49.

On the women’s side, Clodagh Cant completed Huddersfield parkrun in 16:09 and Louise Small ran 16:22 at Brooklands. Times of 15:02 and 16:54 sit tenth on the respective lists – a particularly speedy double parkrun week!

Fastest Course

Before crowning a fastest course, it is nice to see courses from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland feature. However, there can only be one course titled the fastest. With a first and third place on the men’s rankings, Battersea takes the Christmas number one.

Women’s Rankings

Men’s Rankings