It was a gloriously muddy morning at London Fields junior parkrun, with 28 young runners lining up despite wet and muddy conditions. We welcomed two first timers to the course — one of whom took part in an incredibly close photo finish for first and second place, edging it on her debut!

GoodGym was out in force, with Lobo, Anna, Sarah and Rue supporting the event, and Nick expertly taking on the role of Race Director. Huge thanks to the whole team for keeping things running smoothly in tricky conditions.

The mud didn’t slow anyone down, with some super-strong finishes, impressive determination, and even a few joyful slides over the finish line. Some may have slipped on the course too, but as Nick said it was all character building! (and definitely not an incident)

As always a brilliant display of effort, encouragement and community spirit from start to finish. All the mud, all the smiles, all the reasons we love junior parkrun — we’ll be back for more next week.

It was somewhat atmospheric first thing at the Fields this morning as Rue and I laid out the cones for event #355, as a thin layer of mist hung in the air. We felt we might be short of volunteers but true to form as the clock clicked closer to 9, we welcomed Lucinda and Kareem for another week of high vizzing - with Rue directing the show once again and leading the warm up with the Hackney Haka, and Nick on barcode scanning we had decent GG representation - 6 other helpful volunteers stepped up, and we were able to get the show on the road for another week.

4 first timers took on the slightly muddy 2 laps today, and our first two finishers sprinted down the home straight to only finish a few seconds apart in an exciting finish. 44 keen runners took to the course, setting 4 pbs and everything seemed to go remarkably smoothly in spite of the slippery conditions underfoot!

Run director Rue seemingly had almost everything perfectly under control at about 0850 this morning (tokens aside...ahem), and as we discussed between us all where to deploy our helpful volunteer team, including GoodGymmers Hilary, Nick and Kitty (on her GG debut!), around the course, a mass of little people seemed to arrive from all directions and we momentarily when into slight chaos mode as it suddenly felt like we were in the school dining hall and fielding questions from all directions!

However, like all the great masterpieces, once he'd picked up the baton to conduct today's proceedings everything seemingly fell back into place, and any fracture lines were quickly covered over as if it was all intended. One of our newest volunteers, Evie, led today's warmup, which certainly got both participants and onlookers hearts racing...and then it was 3-2-1 go.

38 enthusiastic runners took on the the slightly muddy 2 laps today, including 6 first timers, and our first runner home was crossing the line in a very impressive 8:17, with another 7 posting PBs - excellent work by all concerned, and thank you as always to all of today's volunteers.

See you next week under the big tree for more fun at the Fields.

It must have been something about today's arctic conditions mixed with a hint of sunlight that drew our biggest congregation of Sunday morning volunteers for which we, and all of today's hardy runners (and their coaches), were all extremely grateful - if the phrase "start the year as you mean to go on" has any truth to it, we're in for a bumper year at the Fields!

In all we had fifteen generous souls don the high viz and position themselves neatly around the course, including as Marshals (Sarah, Hilary, Sooz, Lucinda, Anna, Lobo, Kareem), Timekeeper (Rue), and Tailwalker (Louise), with Nick as today's RD conducting the merry band - we were also grateful for visiting volunteers from Cheltenham, Highbury Fields, Burgess and our helpful DoE participant on finish token duty.

21 enthusiastic runners took to the frosty course, including two complete first timers to parkrun (their (or their parents') Sunday mornings will never be the same...), and, in spite of the near freezing conditions, 3 PBs were recorded, which really was some effort. Hopefully everyone has recovered full use of their fingers and toes and gathered their chilly breath, and we're already looking forward to next week, where the forecast is for it to be a few degrees warmer (but definitely not tropical).

Join us if you can under the big tree next Sunday at 0845 for more fun at the Fields.

A small and perfectly formed crowd included new parkrunners and Parkrun tourists from as far as Bournemouth for today’s last junior parkrun of the year.

22 youngsters sped round, aiming for a new course record on this two lap 2km route, and GoodGymmers as usual formed the backbone of the hi-vis heroes helping to keep them on course.

With the milestone wristbands handed out - an ULTRA marathon achieved today! - the young runners were off the flying start.

Sarah at her usual tree and Sooz at the helm as today’s RD.

Not 20 minutes later and all was wrapped up for 2025!

Who’s coming to the first event of 2026?

As the mist danced across London Fields, there was a festive feeling in the air!

With a bumper volunteer turn out, the usual suspects took to their posts:

Rue on Timekeeper Sooz on warm up Hilary, Louise, Nicolas out in marshal positions and Sarah on her tree!

The GoodGym squad as helped out as we recognised a rostrum of milestone achievers and then the junior runners were off.

Thanks to the fantastic volunteers, 43 youngsters - with NINE new personals best - made it through the 2km run with big smiles and big finishes.

See you down at the Fields next week for more festive fun!