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More than 100 runners and walkers turned up for the 100th Parkrun event at Thurso on Saturday morning.

It was a special day in particular for local participant Helen Mackay who completed her 50th Parkrun in 100th position – just a second inside 50 minutes!

Saturday saw Parkruns across Scotland return to action for the first time since they were stopped due to the pandemic in March last year.

Local event director Donna Stewart was delighted that everything went to plan for the long-anticipated restart.

"We had 111 which was amazing," she said. "I definitely wasn't expecting that many. There were 32 first timers, about half of which were tourists.

"It went really smoothly and everyone was just delighted to be back. We had a good turnout of walkers as well which was brilliant."

Leading the field at Thurso boating pond was Kevin Cormack of North Highland Harriers in a time of 18 mins 26 secs.

"Kevin's time was brilliant and there was some good competition at the front, some good PBs as well," Donna said.

"Everyone was just delighted to be back, there were loads of smiley faces. It just felt like we'd been away for a couple of weeks, not 17 months.

"While we were out setting up, I was speaking to people out walking their dogs and they seemed really pleased that things were starting to get back to normality as well."

Thurso Parkrun takes place every Saturday at 9.30am. Participants must register online at www.parkrun.org.uk/thurso in advance.

• Pictures: Gavin Powell

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