03/11/2026
This weeks run report by Louise Breivik and huge thanks to our photographer Sarka Hnilickova for the outstanding photos 👻🎃
🎃 Ballymount parkrun #18 – Frightfully Good Fun in the Park! 👻
Saturday 31st October 2026
There was something magical in the air at Ballymount this Halloween morning, and for once it wasn't a spooky fog or a witch's cauldron! The weather was absolutely beautiful, and Ballymount Park was looking boo-tiful in the autumn sunshine. The trees, the colours and the glorious morning sunshine provided a picture-perfect backdrop for our Halloween parkrun.
We had 67 brave souls rise from their coffins (or perhaps just their beds!) to join us for this week's frightfully good event. Among them was a gang of local marathon finishers who were out enjoying a well-deserved shake-out run after their Dublin Marathon adventures. We hope the legs are recovering nicely!
Halloween was clearly taken seriously by some of our participants, with a fantastic collection of costumes making an appearance. We had Granny Keogh, a cowgirl, a skeleton, an alien, Sonic, two witches, a clown, the Grim Reaper, a crash test dummy, a zombie camogie player, a zombie, a Teletubbie and even the Devil himself! It was quite the gathering – enough characters to make a horror movie, although thankfully the only thing being chased was a PB!
The craic was mighty, and there were plenty of laughs along the way. A huge thank you to everyone who dressed up and helped make the morning so much fun. You were all absolute screamers!
🧙♀️ The spooky statistics
A fang-tastic 67 participants crossed the finish line, including 37 males, 26 females and 4 whose gender was recorded as unknown.
There were plenty of treats in store:
17 shiny new PBs – no tricks here!
21 first timers joining us at Ballymount.
4 people completing their very first parkrun: Conor Mansworth, Sarah McMahon, Lisa Kennedy and Karen Curley. Welcome to the parkrun family – we hope you've caught the bug!
16 hi-vis heroes keeping everything running smoothly.
🏆 The frightfully fast
Leading the field home this week was Bryan Bird, finishing in an impressive 20:17. Our first female finisher was Katie Grogan, in 21:17. Fantastic running from both!
On age grading, Alan Brady topped the table with a brilliant 77.68%, followed by Katie Grogan on 69.54%. Clearly, there were no scary performances here!
🎉 Personal bests – no tricks, just treats!
A massive congratulations to our 17 runners who bagged themselves a new PB this Halloween morning:
Alan Brady, Conor Douris, Aidan O'Donnell, Bernard Wedick, Ian Healy, Sean Keating, Declan Farrell, Senán Farrell, Michael McGrath, Shauna Cooper, Marianna O'Donnell, Keith Nolan, Paul O'Connor, Aoife Troy, Elaine Storey, Mary Whelan and James Aylward.
You can all give yourselves a pat on the back – that's some seriously spooky speed!
👻 Milestone celebrations
There were a few milestones worth celebrating this week:
Nina Breivik completed her 10th parkrun.
Aidan O'Donnell reached the fantastic milestone of 25 parkruns.
Kevin Roche and Darren Bracken both clocked up 10 volunteer credits – an unofficial but very worthy milestone!
A huge congratulations to everyone. Here's to many more!
🧡 Our parkrun regulars
A special mention to our most dedicated participants. Peter Brady leads the way with an incredible 372 parkruns, with Mary Whelan not far behind on 283.
When it comes to volunteering, Grainne Byrne is our leading volunteer with 26 credits, followed by Alan Feighery on 23 and Bernard Wedick on 18. We are lucky to have such dedicated members of our Ballymount community.
💚 Our hi-vis heroes
Of course, parkrun wouldn't happen without our wonderful volunteers, who give up their Saturday mornings to make the magic happen.
This week's team was:
Nikita Masterson, Grainne Byrne, Sorina Popescu, Kevin Roche, Caoimhe Dunne, Lily-May Cleary, Isabelle Feighery, Charis Feighery, Max Keogh, James Aylward, Andrea Conran, Sarka Hnilickova, Nina Breivik, Alan Feighery, Louise Breivik and Darren Bracken.
A very special mention to Nikita Masterson, who made her debut as Run Director this morning. She did a brilliant job keeping all our little monsters in order! Congratulations on a fantastic first outing in the role. We hope you enjoyed it and that it wasn't too frightening!
To all our volunteers, thank you for making Ballymount parkrun such a welcoming and enjoyable place to spend a Saturday morning. You're all legends!
🎃 Until next time...
That's another Ballymount parkrun in the bag, and what a morning it was. Beautiful weather, autumn sunshine, fantastic costumes, marathon celebrations, new PBs and plenty of Halloween mischief.
Whether you ran, jogged, walked, volunteered or simply came along to soak up the atmosphere, thank you for being part of it.
We hope everyone had a howling good time. Remember, the only thing we want haunting Ballymount next week is the memory of a great Saturday morning!
Until next Saturday, keep running, keep smiling and don't let the bed bugs bite! 🧛♂️
Ballymount parkrun – where every Saturday is a little bit magical!
