Olivia Tsim and Matthew Crehan ran the fastest parkrun times in the UK this week (11th December).

Our weekly parkrun top ten is sponsored by 1001 Running Tips by our editor Robbie Britton. Order your copy today.

Huge thank you to Olivia Tsim this week for topping the rankings again, with only a slight change in the time needed. It’s a busy weekend, so always good to see.

Tsim, as we mentioned last week, has been clocking up some first finisher marks at several different parkruns recently and this was another top run in Cardiff, with 17:06 just four seconds slower than seven days ago.

Matthew Crehan, who won Manchester Marathon this year with an impressive reverse progression run of 2:18:26, was our fastest male runner with 15:12 at Widnes in the north-west of England. We can only imagine what that first kilometre was like. Having already clocked 14:19 at Podium 5k in April and 15:03 at Croxteth parkrun in August it won’t be long until we see a sub 15 minute parkrun PB.

The rest of the podium

Kate Anderson, of Coventry Godiva Harriers, wasn’t our second quickest as it was a case wrong barcode for a partner, but it does mean Hannah Taunton went one better than Tokyo, in a way, and jumps to second.

Taunton is a name we have seen in these rankings a lot over the years and the British T20 Paralympian brought home a Bronze medal from Tokyo this year with an excellent 4:35.34 in the final, which was also a PB. This weekend Taunton ran 17:17 at Burnham and Highbridge parkrun, which is very close to her best for that particular event.

Up in Scotland Nick Emsley ran 15:13 at Strathclyde parkrun to post the second quickest male time, just one second behind Crehan virtually. After some hill and cross country racing as a youth it seems the Arran Runner is a parkrun aficionado, and this takes a minute off his PB.

We may come back to change this one as the Scot has started running cani-cross this winter and this time is a little closer to his assisted times than his non-assisted PBs, but please do let us know if you saw Nick teamed up with his hound.

It was reported via Twitter that Nick had some help from Bonnie this weekend so his time doesn’t count for the rankings. Will Cork jumps into second spot and Kristof Hornyik is the fastest in Scotland now with a 15:26 in St. Andrews.

Rachel Gibson, of North Down AC is bumped up to third spot and is the highest ranked of three runners who ran the Northern Irish event today. Gibson has had a busy year, racing from 800m all the way up to 10k, with that being the Seeley Cup last weekend, where she ran 36:54 for 16th place.

William Cork, who runs for Norfolk powerhouse club City of Norwich AC, was third male with a time of 15:22 at Darlington South parkrun. Coached by Alison Benton, Cork might have been avoiding a particular tasty looking hill session in Stanmer Park this weekend, but in doing so got a new parkrun best by four seconds. 2021 has already seen PBs for 3000m, 5k and half marathon.

Fastest event?

One event featured three times this week, but also all three were from the same club too. So Belfast Victoria is our fastest event for the weekend, with North Down AC our… fastest club? I don’t think we should start doing that every weekend though.

Men’s top 10

1) parkrun: Widnes
Matt Crehan, 15:12, St Helens Sutton AC
2) parkrun: Darlington South
William Cork, 15:22, City of Norwich AC
3) parkrun: St Andrews
Kristof Hornyik, 15:26, Dundee Hawkhill Harriers
4) parkrun: Exmouth
Henry Irvine, 15:27, Torbay Tri Club
5) parkrun: Chelmsford Central
Scott Cousins, 15:33, Springfield Striders RC
6) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Craig McMeechan, 15:38, North Down AC
7) parkrun: Pollok,Glasgow
Michael Christoforou, 15:39, Edinburgh AC
8) parkrun: Aberdeen
Jim Tole, 15:43, Metro Aberdeen RRC
9) parkrun: Telford
Philip Nicholls, 15:44, Birchfield Harriers
10) parkrun: Gunpowder
Ben Davis, 15:46

Women’s top 10

1) parkrun: Cardiff 
Olivia Tsim, 17:06, Cardiff AAC
2) parkrun: Burnham and Highbridge
Hannah Taunton, 17:17, Taunton AC
3) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Rachel Gibson, 17:20 North Down AC
4) parkrun: Salisbury
Daisy Baker, 17:32
5) parkrun: Seaton
Innes Fitzgerald, 17:35
6) parkrun: Princes, Liverpool
Alex O’Brien, 17:41, Liverpool RC
7) parkrun: Salisbury
Sophie Nicholls, 17:42, City of Salisbury A & RC
8) parkrun: Belfast Victoria
Katie Elizabeth Moore, 17:46, North Down AC
9) parkrun: Penrose
Lucy Charles, 17:46, Orion Harriers
10) parkrun: Finsbury
Katie Brown, 17:47, Trent Park Running Club

If you would like to run faster at parkrun we highly recommend 1001 Running Tips by Robbie Britton, found here.