WITH events going on elsewhere in the town, last weekend's Barry Island parkrun involved another visit to the alternative course for the 134 runners that took part.

Among the 19 runners to complete the 5km route for the first time was Michael Ball from Cambridge, who stopped off on his way to Tenby to take part in his 100th parkrun.

Also reaching 100 this week was co-event director Ian Thorne, who was celebrating his 100th event as a volunteer.

As for the run itself, it was a clean sweep for visitors this week as first over the line in 19:44 was Gareth Knight of Newport Harriers AC, narrowly finishing in front of Andrew Wright of Caerleon RC who was one second behind with Matthew Mulcahy, also of Caerleon RC in third in a time of 20:40.

It was also a very close finish for the ladies with Zoe Barber of Penarth & Dinas Runners first over the line in 21:58. As in the men's race, she finished one second ahead of clubmate Rachel Eales, who finished second in 21:59. Third place went to Sarah Phillips, who completed the course in a time of 25:55.

As the safety of everyone taking part is the priority for Barry Island parkrun, there is a fantastic team of volunteers that give up their time each week to ensure the event takes place as safely as possible.

This week's team of 24 volunteers were: Jeff Cox, Andrew Sedgmond, Lisa Cleary, Julie Broughton, Ian Thorne, Richard Street, Malcolm Bradley, Dave Shields, Joanna White, Lisa Williams, Paul & Harriet Kehl, Nigel James, Sally Bloomfield, Lisa James, Michelle Green, Rhys Davies, Joanne Bagwell, Andrew Marytsch, Sarah Thomas, Morgan White, Katie Wright, Richard Butt and Christopher Barnsley.

Without the help of the volunteers each week the event could not go ahead. If you’d like to get involved in Barry Island parkrun, then get in touch via e-mail at barryislandhelpers@parkrun.com.

This weekend also saw the launch of the brand new Barry junior parkrun, which took place on Sunday at Romilly Park.

After months of hard work behind the scenes planning, organising and training the team, the day finally arrived for the first event.

Bathed in sunshine at 9am on Sunday morning, 91 children aged between four and 14 years of age took to the start line for the very first Barry junior parkrun. The 2km event will take place every Sunday at 9am in Romilly Park.

Both Barry Island and Barry Junior parkrun are organised and run in exactly the same way. If you want to take part in these free, timed runs, you must first register with parkrun at www.parkrun.org.uk/register and print your personal barcode. You must take this along to the event, as it’s needed at the finish.

If you want to get involved and help out at the Barry junior parkrun, you can get in touch by e-mailing barry-juniorshelpers@parkrun.com.