BARRY Shackleton became first Bolton-based runner to clock up 250 parkruns on Saturday.

It was his 81st appearance at Leverhulme Park and he can also boast 40 different venues on his parkrun CV.

Saturday's event was the 262nd running of Bolton parkrun and had its second highest ever number of runners, 353, as local people turned out in support of the Little Stoke parkrun near Bristol which could fold after the local authority decided to make people pay to do it.

There had been calls for parkrunners to show their support by turning out in huge numbers, and there were almost 14,000 new runners around the country at the weekend due to the publicity.

This was the 21st time there had been more than 300 runners at Leverhulme Park.

There were also the highest number of volunteers ever recorded as 36 turned out to ensure the event could run smoothly.

The first runner home was Shay Walker of Bolton United who finished in 18mins 7secs with Paul Freary of Belgrave Harriers chasing him home and finishing 40 seconds behind.

The first lady to finish was Sarah Cumber of Halifax Harriers in 19:55 with Liz Proctor of Bolton United Harriers second in and Debbie Proctor third.

There were plenty of veteran parkrunners at Bolton on Saturday with Dave Carroll of Bury AC running his 240th parkrun, Kenneth Warner his 231st, Ian Riggs his 216th and Paul McGreavy his 214st.

These five runners have completed 1,151 parkruns between them.

Karen Shackleton of Darwen Dashers and Judith Bonnar are both on the brink of milestone runs after both completed their 198th runs on Saturday.

Bolton parkrun this week passed 6,000 different runners who have run the course in its five-year history. The 6,000th different runner was Jared Bentley who was running in his first ever parkrun.

Among this week's personal bests were David Wright (23:59) on his 78th parkrun, Rachel Hancock (23:24) on her 63rd run and Thomas Warner (27.01) on birthday and 31st run.