David Skinner was one of the 643 New Year runners who took part in the Exmouth Parkrun, writes Hamish Spence.

It was a slow shuffling start with such a lot of people participating in a confined space.

The field thinned out for a shot spell in the middle, but bunched up again at the end.

This meant that for the first time ever we had to stand in a queue to cross the finish line!

This added anything up to a minute to our official time.

Being keen, as David is, he headed up to the Haldon Hill Parkrun to find that it was even more crowded, with over 800 runners taking part!

Here there was also a finish line-log jam, but unlike Exmouth, the timers came along the waiting queue before the official finish, resulting in me being timed, according to my watch and after running only 4.82k.

Debbie Marriott was amongst plenty of mighty greens who also turned up at Exmouth and like David went on over to the Haldon NYD event. She commented: "Cheers Park Run, such an amazing organisation that's changed the face of running in UK."

Also singing the praises of Parkrun was Alexa Baker who enjoyed the motivational pre-run talk so much so, that she has signed up for her first volunteer role saying: "It's good to give back, it's the marshals/volunteers who make it happen each week".

Beccy Johnson did her 31st Parkrun at the Haldon event with her 5-year-old.

They both ran/walked the course and in the process Beccy has made a start on her 'RED' January pledge.

Emma Grainger felt surprised at how many other people (229) had also decided on an 8.30am morning run. She was, as far as she could see, the only MG at the Killerton NYD Parkrun, which was a wet, muddy and very slippery event! Both Nikita Kay and Kyle Baker got up very early, hit the road and headed over to the HNY Parkrun in Richmond Park. They found it to be not as flat as anticipated and, with over 1,000 others participating, it was very crowded. Needless to say there was also a finish line queue at the end!