For nearly six years now Parkrun has seen participants of all ages and abilities run a course starting and finishing at Pembroke every Saturday.
Normally when the weather is bad, numbers taking part drop from about 135 to 70. However on Saturday 117 still turned up to tackle the five-kilometre run.
‘I was really surprised to see so many people in the rain, it’s developed into a brilliant community event,’ said race director Charlotte Dunsterville.
To organise the event, a team of about 15 volunteers take on roles such as marshalling, course plotting and time keeping to ensure everything runs smoothly.
The majority of these volunteers help week in week out, and some arrive an hour early to start the set up.
‘We’ve built a community that supports each other,’ said event director Lorna O’Donnell.
Regular volunteer, 90-year-old Alex Allan, has been involved with Parkrun for six years and mixes between taking part and helping.
He said he takes part to get out in the open air and start the day on a positive note.
‘It gets me out of bed,’ he said.
Runner Mark Jeffreys said some of the best things about Parkrun were the mental health benefits and how it enables people to put themselves in tough scenarios, especially in conditions like on Saturday.
‘It’s easy to take part on a sunny day, but when it’s raining and cold the sense of achievement you get from finishing is a lot better,’ he said.
Parkrun started in 2004 in England and since then has spread to 775 different locations across the world.
In 2016 the event was brought to Guernsey after Edinburgh-born Lorna O’Donnell had taken part in a handful of runs across the UK and noticed there was a gap in the Bailiwick.
After contacting various running groups with no success, Mrs O’Donnell decided she would take matters into her own hands and managed to get the event running locally.
‘If you want something done do it yourself,’ she said.
Since then the attraction has grown and grown.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.