Injured parkrunner drives hundreds of kilometres
PARKRUN: If you get injured in most sports, you just take the weekend off.
But injured parkrunners just leave their running shoes at home and turn up to volunteer.
All around Australia, runners take a break from a regular 5km run to volunteer, there were eight volunteers on New Year's Day and a field of 96.
One of the volunteers on Monday was Mark Brighton and he was holding a stuffed owl.
"The Wooters Running Club in Newcastle is based around the owl,” he said.
He worked for the RAAF in the Newcastle area and recently was transferred to Amberley.
"I started doing parkrun in May and haven't missed one since,” Brighton said.
"When I am broken, I just volunteer. I am a parkrun addict.”
Since pulling a muscle in his leg, Brighton has travelled from his home at Yamanto near Ipswich to volunteer at Christmas in Toowoomba, Oakey and on Monday volunteered at the Warwick and Stanthorpe parkruns.
As is the case each week, the Warwick parkrun starts at 7am Saturday at Queens Park.
Prospective runners asked to be at the starting point down from the rugby union oval at 6.45am.
There is no charge to run, all runners need is a barcode printed from the parkrun website for recording purposes.
Each parkrun in Australia is all about participation. The first across the line are called first finishers rather than winners in parkrun.
