Gerry Flaherty’s wife, Carmel Brennan, has not missed a Saturday 5k (not)parkrun since the parkrun events were paused in March 2020.
Here he tells us how proud he is of her.
Carmel ran her first ever parkrun at Marlay Park on 31 August, 2013. At this time, she was totally new to running and had just joined the Blackrock A.C. Fit4life group.
Since then, she has completed 205 parkruns and is a regular at Cabinteely and Poolbeg parkruns. She has also completed parkruns in Dublin, Galway and Mayo.
Myself and our children, Sarah and Steven, are also parkrunners and volunteers, but Carmel is definitely the most consistent parkrunner in the family.
With the last parkrun before the Covid-19 pandemic taking place on Saturday 7 March, Carmel was determined to continue with her weekly 5k each Saturday morning.
On Saturday 21 June, 2020, the first (not)parkrun took place and this allowed the tracking of her parkruns and gave her a greater incentive to keep it up all year. All these (not)parkruns were completed on a Saturday morning in local parks within 2k or 5k of our house.
Carmel’s 52nd (not)parkrun took place in Blackrock Park in Dublin on Saturday 6 March 2021 supported by myself, Sarah and Steven.
I think it is a wonderful achievement and we are all very proud of her.
Carmel has kept the (not)parkrun streak going and, at time of writing, has now achieved 55 weeks of Saturday 5ks in a row!
Gerry Flaherty
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