Victoria Park parkrun takeover

The forecast for the whole day was wet, windy and warm-ish but none of it deterred a cohort of Newbury Road Club volunteers and runners at today's parkrun in Victoria Park, Newbury, led by NRC Member and regular Race Director, Fraser Harding.

A 'Takeover', where a local group or organisation literally 'takes over' the running of a parkrun event has become a regular fixture in the club's calendar. The idea benefits everyone: It takes around 30 volunteers to make a parkrun happen here and that's a big commitment, especially with two events happening within Newbury's boundaries. So a takeover gives many of the regular volunteers a break and an opportunity for us to raise awareness of our club and of cycling in general. In the end, the weather was much kinder than we expected: the gazebo stayed exactly where we'd placed it and everyone enjoyed the experience and stayed reasonably dry.

For those less familiar with it, parkrun is an international phenomenon. Events happen at 9am on a Saturday morning in 2,200 locations globally and we regularly meet visitors from around the UK, from Europe and even further. Alphabet Tourism - joining events with names from A to Z - attracts many to Victoria Park, because it's one of a very few V's and it's a beautiful space in the centre of the town. Today we met two runners from Sydney, Australia who joined around 350 others for our parkrun today and we're thrilled to invite them to join us for a cycle ride on Sunday morning.

parkrun isn't a competition, it's an opportunity for anyone to take part in some outdoor activity on a regular basis, to boost their fitness and meet lots of new people. Each runner goes at their own speed according to their ability; it's open to anyone. This week we received a request to support a blind runner and we were able to offer our member, Chris Treacher, who'd had some training to assist blind and partially-sighted runners and he turned out to help today.

A big thank you to all Newbury Road Club members who made this event such a success.

Wherever you live, you can find out more about parkrun via this link.

If you're visiting Newbury, come along to Victoria Park or Greenham Common on a Saturday morning and then join us for a cycle ride around West Berkshire, Wiltshire and Hampshire on Sunday. Details here.