It's been a busy few weeks for our brave Duppas Hill Puffers with the decision for some of the group to take part in a local parkrun event on Saturday 2nd December adding extra focus to the Monday evening training sessions.

The event chosen was the South Norwood one held in the tucked away Country Park on the Croydon/Bromley border that recently started this year. The reason behind the choice was that the 5K course was fairly flat, apart from one small hill, plus mud free with the fact that the run leader was involved in the set up having nothing to do with it!

3 of our runners took part plus your run leader, Emma, Helen and Toni and all 3 were understandably nervous as the lined up waiting for the 9AM start, after all not only was it their first ever parkrun but also the first time they had run the 5K distance! We sensibly started towards the back of the 94 strong field and all ran the first lap fairly much together taking regular work breaks to ensure we lasted the pace. At the start of the 2nd lap Emma had built up a distance between herself and the other 2 ladies so I encouraged her to push on by herself while I ensured that neither Helen nor Toni's sprits or pace flagged too much. Once the hill was conquered for the final time both ladies pushed onto the finish to join Emma who had already complete the run. Despite pre-race predictions from Helen that we would all finish last and take an hour to complete I'm glad to see that we didn't, okay there were only a few runners behind us but Emma finished in just over 38 minutes while Helen and Toni finished together in 42 minutes so excellent results all round for a first run.

All of our 3 runners commented afterwards how much they enjoyed it and would consider doing it again although this was a different view then was expressed when we were running around the course, especially on the 2nd lap! In fact Toni has already thrown down the gauntlet via email this week stating that she plans to run it again so that she beat her time, anyone going to join her quest?