After several months of Swindon virtual parkrun success, today saw 8 of us hardy souls join the Hi-vis Heroes at Seven Fields parkrun… Only to be gatecrashed by Storm Arwen! The wind was super strong (reliably informed 40mph winds to be exact), and the snow like needles to the face. To say it was freezing is a complete understatement!

Our Pacers, Paul, Stuart, Jason, Tracey, and Charles (well I think it was Charles under all those layers?!) did a cracking job of leading 64 other parkrunners round the course. All directed round and cheered on by our Marshal Rhoda and timed in position by Timekeeper Kirsty. All that was left was for me to do was to help close down the event before dashing home to hibernate under the duvet and to defrost!

We love hosting Swindon's virtual parkrun but it's definitely time to see our lovely running community in the flesh (so to speak 😳) once again. So we have our fingers tightly crossed 🤞🤞 that this was our final virtual parkrun fling, and the final countdown to parkrun in real life is on.

This week 90 people ran and walked their vpr...taking us to a grand total of 8961 virtual parkruns in Swindon.

With our pefect pacers, terrific tailwalker, and magnificent marshalls, including a pawsome pacing debut from Domino 🐶, the sun has set on another weekend of shared stories of running and walking and a sense of togetherness and friendship ❤️🖤

Wow what a weekend! this weeks Swindon Virtual Park has been full of so many wonderful Swindonians taking part for many charity events and raising money for worthy charties and the amazing Swindon Goodgym team have been there on hade to pace, marshal and tail them through there quests. Tracey 's sign's were so welcome and we all are now looking forward to no only Parkrun returning!! but the cocktails on Colin's Corner.!!! Kirsty, Helen and Gina were shouting and screaming to wave people through and Annie and Teresa keep us all safe with there tails. Pacers were spot on yet again!! Must be Stu's pacing training ! Great work Emma. Richard, Paul, Jo, Charles, Jason and Tracy even managed a PB in the heat (must be solar powered!) Great weekend and we raised the temperature and loads of smiles! JOB DONE

Throughout lockdown the running community of Swindon run a 5k route of our own choosing at our own time between 18:00 Friday to 18:00 Sunday. We record our efforts and submit them for entry onto the leader board. It's like a real Park Run but different 🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♀️.

13 runners signed up for pacer, tail walking and marshalling duties for the GoodGym takeover of this weekends VPR. Week 58 no less, and we continue to support each other and the Swindon Community runners.

As always I'd like to thank GoodGym Swindon volunteers in supporting me as RD it's never possible without you guys.

Special thanks go to Stuart Kingsley who paced both 22 and 25 minutes, there's just no stopping him 😉 and congratulations to Hannah Garraway who took on the 40 minute pacer along with new entry baby Rueben 👶 and just happened to ring the PB bell 🔔. Brilliant work guys.

As far as I’m told there ‘should’ be just one more GoodGym takeover if all goes to plan and we have other GoodGym RDs lined up to lead so on that note it's adios from me as RD👋

But not just yet. The government roadmap to bring the UK out of Covid Jail has been announced so there is light at the end of this very long tunnel..... YAY!! It's been a whole year since the UK went into the first lockdown but that didn't deter the good people of Swindon from missing out on our beloved Park Runs and VPR came into fruition. 9 runners / walkers covered pacing duties, tail walkers and marshalling and I was RD for the weekend. I couldn't have done this without the support of my fantastic GoodGym Swindon support team, well done guys! Our thoughts were with Tariq Hussain, a Swindon runner, and his family. Sadly, Tariq was struck by a vehicle whilst out running recently and he lost his battle for his life - RIP dear man. We are very lucky here to have a magnificent support group in Swindon Community Running always full of kindness and sound advice, it really is quite amazing.

Aloha! This weekend, under bright blue skies, Swindon became a tropical paradise 🏝️ and we had a lot of fun in the sun 🌞

It was a GoodGym takeover for Swindon's virtual parkrun and a Hawaii 5-0 theme gave the opportunity to escape winter and release those Hawaiian shirts and beachwear from the depths of the wardrobe.🩳👙 And the Swindon running community did not disappoint - with the brightness of the outfits matching the vibrancy and warmth of our running family.

Our fabulous team of virtual pacers, tailwalkers and marshalls supported 144 runners and walkers, with 15 people ringing the PB bell 🔔. 20 minute pacer Paul was quick off the mark in the most magnificent grass skirt. Alexandra was spot on with the 30 minute pacing, as were Cath and Annie in her pawsome outfit 🐶.

With the news of the roadmap for the return of parkrun, we hope that we'll be together again soon. Maybe for a celebration cake -meanwhile Ashleigh kindly offered virtual slices of a very real cake 🎂...it's the thought that counts?!