Regular readers of my blog will know I’ve wanted to bring a Junior parkrun to the area for a couple of years. That dream has almost turned into reality and we’ll be a step closer in a matter of days when we hold our trial event.

This will take place on Sunday 10th November at Riverside Park, Southampton. The venue is flat and likely to be fast as much of the course is on tarmac paths.

The purpose of the trial event is to give the event team the opportunity to hold the event as if it were a real Juniors parkrun but without the pressure of having to officially publish results etc. We do plan to publish them though but not on the event’s website.

For those of you that haven’t heard about Junior parkrun, these are similar to the weekly 5km parkrun but aimed at children.

Here are a few bullet points to summarise a Junior parkrun’s features:

• weekly – every Sunday morning
• 2km timed run
• aimed at children aged 4-14 years old
• children don’t need to be accompanied during run but up to 2 adults can run with each child
• no dogs, bikes, scooters etc – children must run or walk

All children that want to participate need to bring their parkrun barcode. This can be printed once registered via the form at http://www.parkrun.org.uk/register/form/

I can’t wait to bring this event to Southampton. Watch this space for details of how the trial event and the inaugural event go (this event is on the 24th November).

For more information, visit the Southampton Juniors parkrun event website or visit our Southampton Juniors parkrun Facebook page.