Snooker legend Ronnie O'Sullivan led the warm up at a new park run for children.

The Chigwell based potter made it to the Roding Valley Recreation Ground at 9am on Sunday, where he helped a group of 59 children limber up.

The five-time world champion then scanned runners' barcodes as they made their way over the finish line.

Daniel Carroll, one of the organisers of the run, said: "Every kid that ran got to meet him.

"He posed for selfies with everybody.

"He is a keen runner himself and ran an 18 minute park run the day before."

The junior park run is now three weeks old.

What began as an idea at the senior equivalent led to head organiser Chris Chapman funding from the district council and convincing the town council to award him an event's license for a busy Sunday morning spot.

After a test day involving 14 obliging children running through pouring rain, Loughton Town Mayor Stephen Murray directed the warm up on the first official run day.

So far, 114 different children have taken part in at least one race organised by a team including Mr Chapman, Mr Carroll, Caroline Smith, Catherine Gurney, Karen West, Kerry Parke and Lynne Wakinshaw.

While a new, absurdly fast 2km in 6 minutes 38 seconds course record was set on Sunday, the average course time is 12 minutes and 16 seconds.

Mr Carroll added: "It is definitely not a race.

"We are conscious of stressing that to the kids.

"Some of the older kids who go to athletics clubs are there to improve their running times.

"The last three weeks the course record has been broken. But after those first couple of finishers it quickly tails off.

"We have groups of friends walking around chatting, like my daughter.

"They all have a big smile on their faces."

The junior park run warm-up starts at 8.45am each Sunday and is for four to 14 year-olds.

Go to www.parkrun.org.uk/rodingvalley-juniors