Since February 2017 the parkrun has been a hugely popular and successful activity in Stanley Park. There is now a junior event in Blackpool with the launch last month of an event for four to fourteen year olds at Anchorsholme Park.
For the juniors parkruns take place Sunday at 9.00. Their event is two kilometres, rather than the 5k of the adult event. Unlike the open age parkrun the junior event begins with a warm up routine which at Anchorsholme takes place in the performance area in front of Brew café.
Anchorsholme was selected as the venue for the junior parkrun in Blackpool because the park had effectively been recreated from scratch following the laying of a new sewage pipeline. Unfortunately the pandemic has meant that the park has been open for a year before the parkrun could start, but now things are very much up and ‘running’.
The main paths of the park are just under one kilometre in length, so the course is two laps before returning to the oval by the café and the finishing funnel. The course is fully wheelchair accessible and entirely on concrete paths.
For families in the south of the town the well established parkrun at Park View playing fields, Lytham is possibly easier to access.
Any child taking part at either event should be registered with parkrun – the form is available at https://www.parkrun.org.uk/register/. They should bring a printed copy of their unique participant barcode to every event so that they get a time and their run history is logged – after several milestones commemorative wristbands are earned.
Parkrun is a run not a race. Young people of all abilities are welcome to take part, it’s all about having fun. For more information about the new Blackpool event search for ‘Anchorsholme junior parkrun’ on Facebook or go to https://www.parkrun.org.uk/anchorsholme-juniors/.
Show Comments (0)