First Birthday Celebrations for Lough Moss junior parkrun
July 10, 2019
Lough Moss junior parkrun has celebrated a successful first year at Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council’s Carryduff Leisure Centre, culminating in its big 1st birthday celebrations on Sunday 7th July.
Open to young people aged 4 to 14, the Lough Moss 2K junior parkrun has taken place each Sunday morning with a staggering 503 different participants taking part throughout the year and an average of 68 children attending each week. Records were also broken with 709 personal bests and an average run time of just over 12 minutes, highlighting the many success stories which have been enjoyed since the event’s launch one year ago.
Speaking at the birthday celebrations, Vice Chair of the Leisure and Community Development Committee, Councillor Hazel Legge said, “The junior parkrun at Lough Moss Leisure Centre has provided an extremely valuable contribution to the health and well-being of young people in the Carryduff area. It also provides an ideal opportunity for families to run, walk or jog together by engaging in physical activity and most importantly having fun together.
“This year the parkrun was held 50 weeks of the year with on average almost 70 children taking part each week, which highlights the popularity of the event with young people and their desire to get active. It is also encouraging to see the children improving each week with many personal bests and even half marathon wrist bands being presented today.
“I would also like to thank the many volunteers who give up their time each week to setup and organise the parkrun. Their dedication and motivation to inspire these young people to engage in physical activity is testimony to the success of this event and without their commitment programmes like this would simply not be possible.
“Finally I would like to wish all the young people every success and I hope the programme will inspire them to continue with parkrun or other physical activity programmes into adulthood. I look forward to hearing further success stories and I’m confident that the parkrun at Lough Moss will continue to grow from strength to strength,” added Councillor Legge.
The junior parkrun takes place on Sunday morning at 9.30am at Lough Moss Leisure Centre, Hillsborough Road, Carryduff. The event is free to join in, participants just need to initially register before their first run, so they can be provided with a downloadable and printable bar code which enables the children to take part each week. Lough Moss junior parkrun is co-ordinated and managed by a team of volunteers, so if your child is interested in participating, then why not stay to help and join in the fun.
For more information on the parkrun and to register online, visit www.parkrun.org.uk/loughmoss-juniors.
