Mersea Island park run celebrates 250th event in the wind and rain

The weekend routine does not date back particularly far, having only started in London in 2004, but recent years has seen the popularity of the event explode.

Celebration – runners marked the 250th run at the end of the race (Image: Serenity Rose)

Complete amateurs who want to get their weekend off to a winning start can line up against seasoned professionals – in fact, even the world 1,500m champion, Scotland’s Jake Wightman, ran a couple of park runs towards the end of last year.

Dedicated – these marshals got soaked in the rain on Saturday morning (Image: Serenity Rose)

The 5km run is free to enter and there are more than 1,000 across Britain, with one of them being the Mersea Island park run.

Last weekend, it celebrated its 250th event.

Energetic – one runner can still perform for the cameras (Image: Serenity Rose)

The first was held in December 2016 – now, nearly eight years on, the event is still going thanks purely to the efforts of volunteers and the appetites of runners.

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Race marshals, timekeepers, barcode scanners – park runs truly are an all-hands-on-deck event which relies on the goodwill of others so it can remain open to everybody free of charge.

Multitasking – this runner was running whilst helping another participant along (Image: Serenity Rose)

It made the efforts of those at the Mersea Island park run last weekend all the more impressive, given the dreich morning they were met with when they drew the curtains at 7.30am.

Organiser – the even could not go ahead without volunteers who give time and energy (Image: Serenity Rose)

Nonetheless, there were still more than 100 runners who turned up to run the 5km as the event enjoyed its 250th edition.

Salute – one runner still has the energy to summon a smile (Image: Serenity Rose)

The winner was a young-gun, teenager Stanley Hobbs, who set a new personal best time of 17:45 as he surged to a victory margin of 14 seconds.

They're off – runners get the 250th Mersea Island park run underway (Image: Serenity Rose)

Coming in second was a runner roughly twice his age in the form of Christopher Sellens of Colchester Harriers, dipping under the 18-minute mark by running 17:59.

Whatever the weather – one runner competes in wellies (Image: Serenity Rose)

The winning female runner was Colchester and Tendring’s Kaela Swaine, who is no stranger to the park run, given she ran 11 last year.

One hopes the community feel of the event will go on and, in a few years time, we will soon be celebrating the 500th Mersea Island park run.

Photographs by Serenity Rose.