Innes FitzGerald has run the fastest ever parkrun by a British female.
We are less than twenty four hours into 2026, but the year has already begun with a bang. Innes FitzGerald has run the fastest ever parkrun by a British female athlete. She joined the (record attendance) at Exmouth parkrun and recorded 15:27.
It improves the previous best time, 15:31 by Melissa Courtney-Bryant at Poole on 24 December 2022, by four seconds.
Just one week ago – on Christmas Day – Innes ran 15:47 at Seaton parkrun, which in itself was an impressive performance. It was the first time she has run a parkrun in under sixteen minutes. Perhaps, given the Seaton course starts and ends on a pebbled beach, today’s time should not be a surprise.
Innes’s two visits to parkrun come after a stellar 2025. Amongst the highlights was a debut senior appearance at the World Championships in Tokyo, PBs across the board on the track and road, and winning a third consecutive European U20 Cross Country Championships title.
The fastest time by a male athlete today was 14:48 by Jack Kavanagh at Southampton.
Photo: James Rhodes