Head down to the Ruimsig parkrun for a special Valentine’s-themed run
The Ruimsig parkrun has been up and running for nearly four months.
The 24th edition of the Ruimsig parkrun will be run with love on Saturday, 16 February, as all runners are invited to take part in accordance with the love theme.
Ruimsig parkrun launched for the first time on 15 September last year with close to 1 300 runners, and has since become one of the larger parkruns in the Roodepoort area, averaging anywhere between 800 and 1 000 runners week in and week out. Naturally, the numbers drop when the weather doesn’t cooperate, but even then they welcome about 800 runners, as was the case with the 22nd edition of the parkrun.
Even though the weather was cold and gloomy, and the conditions rather wet and slippery underfoot, the runners seemed to take this in their stride and ran with a newfound fire in their legs as nine of the Top 20 finishers with parkrun tags achieved new personal bests.
The winning time was 18:52, a rather fast time in the conditions. Fourth place on the day went down to the wire, as Lesedi Letuka looked to have it in the bag, but first-time Ruimsig runner William Lyons sprinted in the last 50m to beat him to the finish line by one second, completing his overall 125th parkrun in the process.
The first runner under the age of 10, Noah Oosthuizen, came in with a time of 24:19, finishing in 18th place, while the first woman, Tracey Herholdt, finished 34th overall in a time of 25:39.
Ruimsig will be fully embracing the month of love with its 24th parkrun, as runners are encouraged to wear one of three colours which all bear a specific meaning; red – you’re not available, orange – it’s complicated, and green – you’re available.
So, if you can’t help but get the feeling that your morning runs are a little lonely, then you best don your most flattering green shirt and head on down to Ruimsig Stadium on 16 February for the parkrun at 8am.
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