At Greville Smyth junior parkrun, I arrived having wandered a bit in the rain, capturing extra City Strides residential roads and nodes, to find volunteers already leaving the park!

The snow and ice yellow warning hadn’t caused a problem but the melt and rain had made a normally “fun” level puddle into a huge one disintegrating the path. The event had to be cancelled for the safety of participants and to protect the path.

Fortunately the coffee at Nourished (at Workout’s other gym) was lovely and the company of other soggy volunteers was great as we dried off a bit and the core team prepared their application for a B Course on higher ground!

A great morning at Victoria Park cheering on the junior parkrunners and making sure the times matched the tokens for super quick results processing.

Then on to Windmill Hill City Farm café for a coffee before commish two of the day at Holy Cross Primary for a bit more mud 😀

It was a bit soggier than forecast but lots of little legs made it round the various junior parkrun courses with lots of smiles.

The sun was shining at the start of the briefing at Windmill Hill, the Run Director of the day even said “it’s a good day for a run so they won’t need lots of extra motivation” - the kiss of death for the weather.

Off we went to our marshal spots and within seconds the sky had darkened and the rain started and soon became torrential. Then came the hail, and the warm-up was quick and the start almost at 9am, after some milestone wristbands had been awarded to soggy junior parkrunners.

My puddle was growing and I had a few takers for “through the puddle” but by far the majority for “around the puddle”.

Our other junior parkruns had similarly changeable weather but we all had lots of smiles and amazing running and walking from the kids - a great start to a Sunday.

It was a super quick junior parkrun at Windmill Hill in Victoria Park, with some major puddles to be jumped into around the course, all home in 28 minutes!

Last Sunday of the January Challenge, and four GG Bristol keen beans started it off volunteering at local junior parkruns! I helped out at Eastville, with plenty of high fives and encouragement for kids running up the hill. Gary, Toby and Anna helped out at Windmill Hill, where they had just as much excitement!