By Alistair McArthur

A NEW record attendance of 342 runners completed the course this week.

Together with 25 volunteers, that’s a whopping 367 people involved in Bolton parkrun on Saturday morning.

This week’s team of volunteers saw Andy Patterson, Cecilia Woods, Dave Allen and Dave Hitchen arriving early to set up the course.

Brian and Megan Horrocks, Christine Holden, Ella and Jeremy Turner, John Ward, Lucille Corrigan, Lynn Bourke, Malcolm Pittock, Phil Glassbrook, Rak Patel and Rita Ledwards pointed runners around the course, and Anne Larkin and Sue Walton ran as tail-runners to get everybody home safe.

David Ardill timed runners across the line, Ann Butler and Louise Geoghegan sorted out the tokens, Paul Johnson and Shirley Tull scanned in, and Brian Tull helped pack up.

Of the record attendance, 44 runners were first timers, 70 ran new personal bests and 22 different athletics clubs were represented.

James Scott-Farrington, Shay Walker and Tommy Harrison were the first three home, while Paula Pilling, Holly Craggs and Shirley Staveley were their female counterparts.

Shay Walker (77.29 per cent), Eileen Royle (76.41 per cent) and Paul Thompson (75.37 per cent) recorded the day’s highest age gradings.

Since Bolton parkrun started on February 5, 2011, 4,558 different runners have covered the 5k course around Leverhulme Park, including participants from 211 athletics clubs. They have completed 37,230 runs covering a total distance of 186,150km, and there have been 7,220 new personal bests.

Runner of the week

Tristan Kent

Tristan completed his 100th parkrun on Saturday