On Saturday we had an arbitrary milestone, but a milestone none the less, as we welcomed our 7,000 different participant to Griffeen.
If you ever hear Paul Sinton-Hewitt, founder of parkrun, speak he will tell you it was never about the run. We’re not too sure it is about the park either, after all, we have seen parkruns start on canals, greenways, beaches and even in prisons. parkrun is really about the people you meet, friendships formed, chats with strangers and stories shared. And of course, the cake and countless coffees.

This week at Griffeen we had 125 participants and 20 volunteers.
The people behind those numbers included Luke Murphy, convinced by his father to try parkrun for the first time and in doing so became our 7,000 unique participant.
We had regular Gary Farrell who arrived a little late, came over to say hello to the volunteers, before taking off to catch the tailwalker. In fact, he caught every other participant along the way to become the first one home.
We had Gary’s clubmate Tricia Gough giving out to Gary as she handed him his finish token reminding him that he had a race the following day and was meant to be taking it easy!
Scanning tokens was Sean Kavanagh, Tricia’s son, who earned his 25th volunteer credit, as did one of our timekeepers, Ann Higgins. Congratulations to you both.
We had Al Tinoy who completed his 25th parkrun (we’ll be seeing an influx of purple t-shirts in the coming weeks!), 22 of which have been at Griffeen. Al popped over to us after his run to add his name to the volunteer list for next week.
We had Jim Dwyer who volunteered to help with set up and although he wasn’t taking part, he stayed with us to cheer everyone home.
We had Gary Rooney who has been chipping away at his time since he took up parkrun after lockdown and was delighted to hear we would have pacers next week so he can hopefully try for his goal time, we know it’ll be the first of many goals.
We had Sharon Ashmore visiting us from Castletown parkrun and showing off her incredible 250th volunteer t-shirt.

We always (quite rightly) thank our volunteers each week but this week we also want to thank each of those 7,000 participants who have helped to make our event what it is.
We’re lucky to have a great core team who do all the little bits behind the scenes, but we do rely on others to volunteer to give you a safe event each week. If you’d ever like to help out, you can get in touch at griffeen@parkrun.com. Just let us know what date you are available and if there is any specific role you’d like to do.

The event this week was made possible by 20 volunteers:
Ceara KERRIGAN • Anita HUGHES • Brian VAUGHAN • Jim DWYER • Lorcan SWEENEY • Massimo FRANZINA • Tracey DENNER • Gary DENNER • Ann HIGGINS • Ryan DUNNE • Tricia GOUGH • Sean KAVANAGH • Geraldine EVANS • Siobhan SHERIDAN • Josephine ARMSTRONG • Colm FOLEY • Claire WALSHE • Stephen ROWAN • David O REILLY • Colm MAGUIRE
See you all next week!
Ceara Kerrigan
Run Director 23rd Apr 2022