Race Date: Friday/Saturday 21st/22nd June 2024

The 24 hour small park Big Run was held on 20/21^st June. It’s a community challenge, you run as much or as little as you like in kilometre laps of Meersbrook Park, Sheffield,  with a bloody great hill, within the 24 hours.

I’m one of the co-organisers, this was our 8^th year. We run in solidarity with people living under occupation in Palestine who do not have any freedom of movement and raise money for 2 charities.

Here’s a snapshot:

• The sun shone all weekend – miracle! We had over 530 runners/walkers, plus a load of fun runners and many more who came to watch, listen, support, sing and eat
• We had around 100 volunteers! (many of them Striders – thank you!)
• We made lanterns and crafts with children and had a crazy lantern parade, thanks for getting a 3 metre long fish up that hill Chris Walker!
• A giant kingfisher lantern was nicked from the woods in Meersbrook Park about midnight, the pesky pair rode off out the park and were seen on Rushdale Rd with it on the front of a bike looking like a cross between E.T and a Ken Loach film! If anyone spots a massive kingfisher on their run let me know!
• We served 152 delicious Palestinian meals on Saturday
• Solidarity runs took place in Gaza (photo of the kids running through the rubble of Khan Younis), Ramallah and Nablus, amazing efforts.
• We have raised over £17,000! Sheffield Palestine Cultural Exchange will distribute the funds towards rebuilding our work with children in Gaza and also for the Sheffield Palestine Women’s Scholarship Fund, which will continue to support students in their University education.
• We had the BIG SING to Gaza and spoke to friends in Ramallah at the end of the run, we sadly could not speak to our friends in Gaza this year.

A little about the charities we support.

With the war in Gaza it has been incredibly difficult to keep in touch with our partners at the Never Stop Dreaming Children’s centre in Khan Younis (which has been bombed and destroyed along with the staff and families homes). They have been displaced from one place to the next, nowhere is safe. A few staff did however get back to recover what they could from their destroyed building and are trying, when possible to resume activities for displaced children who are living in the UN schools or camps.  They are amazing.

All 12 universities in Gaza have been blown up or heavily damaged, so the women’s scholarship fund are still funding students in the West Bank, but are trying to work on a plan of how to get the women in Gaza back into education. Nobody in Gaza has been to school or University since the beginning of the war 9 months ago.

32 Striders ran in the park, 2 of them ran Ultra marathons – Steve Blake who just came to see how much he could do… 86 laps it turned out, ouch! And the machine that is Nick Booker who ran the whole 24 hours, even speeding up in his last hour of running and over taking us – crazy! He managed a whooping 150 laps  (150km) Nick was one of 3 people running the 24 hours this year (and one walker).

There was also a virtual run option for those who wanted to take part but were not in Sheffield on the day, thanks to the Striders away team in the Lake District! And Stuart Jones who ran lots of laps of a very tiny park in Barnard Castle.

Here’s a long list of everyone’s laps!