Parkrun

Parkrun logo

Parkrun (styled as parkrun) is the name given to a collection of five-kilometre running events that take place every Saturday morning in fourteen countries across five continents. Each Parkrun territory has its own sponsors. Because of the sponsorship all are free to take part in.

Runners are required to register online in advance for a unique athlete number and to print their own identification barcode for use when taking part.^[1][2][3] Runners' results in each event are processed and uploaded online after the run by volunteers. Each registered runner has an individual page cataloguing the details of each event in which they have participated. Junior Parkrun (styled as junior parkrun) is a spin-off event which provides a 2 km run for children aged 4–14 weekly on a Sunday morning.

History

Founded by Paul Sinton-Hewitt in 2004, the idea of Parkrun grew from the initial Bushy Parkrun event (originally called Bushy Park Time Trial) into a small collection of events called the UK Time Trials and then into Parkrun (2010). Events now take place every week in Australia, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Czech Republic,^[4] the United States, Italy and France. Parkruns have previously been operated in Zimbabwe and Iceland. There was also formerly a Parkrun at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, which was operated by Parkrun UK. Sinton-Hewitt was presented the Runner's World 'Heroes of Running' award for philanthropy for his work with Parkrun in 2009 and became a CBE in the Queen's birthday honours 2014 for 'services to grass roots sports participation'.^[5]

Global participation first exceeded 10,000 in April 2011 and 20,000 in August 2012. Neither participation nor event numbers show any sign of slowing with global participation first exceeding 30,000 in April 2013 (225 events), 40,000 in August 2013 (282 events), 50,000 in November 2013 (317 events), 60,000 in January 2014 (340 events), 70,000 in April 2014 (386 events), and more than 100,000 by April 2016 (more than 730 events).^[6][7]

Just over 332,000 individuals did their first run with Parkrun in 2013, taking the total number of individuals who have ever run with Parkrun to 663,900. Just over 1.95 million runs were recorded in 2013 taking the total number of runs since it started in 2004 to 3.92 million runs. Making all this possible were the contributions of 42,800 unique volunteers who volunteered in excess of 180,000 times across 362 events or locations while delivering 14,015 events during the year. 153 new events were added in 2013. In May 2014 the 1,000,000 registrant mark was passed.

By 24 December 2015, there were over two million registered Parkrunners globally, together having done over 12.5 million runs, with one million instances of volunteering.^[7]

Volunteers

Each Parkrun event is run entirely by volunteers. To assist the volunteers, Parkrun HQ provides the necessary equipment and there are several different volunteer roles at each Parkrun event.^[8] Every event has a 'volunteer' page, with the same basic information about how to get involved as a volunteer, as well as crediting those who have made the effort in the most recent week.^[9] The Parkrun website credits those who volunteer each week as "the heart" of Parkrun, and integral to its not-for-profit status.^[10] It also provides a useful range of responses to commonly asked questions about volunteering, with information on each of the different roles, in its FAQ section.^[11] It is recommended that runners volunteer three times over the course of a year to help their local Parkrun function sustainably.^[12]

Events

The first event was held in Bushy Park in 2004. It was 2007 before expanding beyond one event. 2009 saw the first international event in Denmark. By March 2014 there were 371 Parkrun events taking place worldwide. Two years after that, in March 2016, there were over 840 parks. A list of international Parkrun websites is available from the countries link on the Parkrun site.

As of 24 October 2016, Parkrun 5k event parks and Junior 2k event parks are held in the following countries:

Country Parks Events Cite United Kingdom 422 72,261 [13] [lower-alpha 1] Australia 188 19,770 [14] South Africa 86 8,784 [15] Ireland 54 4,537 [16] Poland 39 3,799 [17][lower-alpha 2] Russia 23 1,925 [18] New Zealand 15 1,574 [19] Denmark 7 2,146 [20] United States 7 671 [21] France 5 193 [22] Italy 3 97 [23] Canada 3 18 [24] Singapore 2 128 [25] Jersey 1 55 [13][26] Guernsey 1 29 [13][27] Sweden 1 8 [28]

Country Junior event parks Cite United Kingdom 125 [29][lower-alpha 3] Ireland 3 [29]

Junior Parkrun events

By May 2013 there were four 2 km junior events, held once a month. In 2014, Parkrun UK relaunched the junior Parkrun series in the United Kingdom. These events are weekly, free, 2 km running events taking place in pleasant parkland. Junior Parkrun is open to runners from age 4 to 14.

As of 24 October 2016, combined worldwide statistics for all junior events:^[30]

A 10 Club has been established for Juniors who have completed ten 5km runs.

Conflicts with local authorities

In September 2011, Cardiff City Council suspended the Parkrun after complaints that the pathway was completely blocked by runners, thus creating safety issues. The event was re-instated following further discussion with the council.^[31]

Due to their policy of keeping their runs free to enter, Parkrun have refused to start events if the local council charges the organisers or runners.^[32] In April 2016, Stoke Gifford. an English parish council, voted to charge runners a fee to participate in the local Parkrun, to fund path maintenance.^[33] Despite support from the Sports Minister and an online petition, the council would not change their decision, so the remaining planned 2016 events were cancelled.^[34]

Technology

Parkrun makes extensive use of electronic timing and barcode technology to generate the results of each event. When registering with Parkrun, runners print out a personal barcode which encodes their unique athlete number. As runners cross the finish line, their time is recorded electronically by a volunteer using a stopwatch that can export data to a computer. The runner is also handed a barcoded tag which tells them their finish position. Runners then take the tag to a second volunteer who scans the runner's personal barcode and scans the barcode on their finish tag. This allows a computer system to record the finish position and identity of each runner.

The finish times and athlete numbers (with their finish position) are uploaded to a server which automatically generates the results tables and statistics on the Parkrun web site. The use of the unique runner number allows the web site to collate historical data including personal bests, overall performance, total number of runs and to calculate the number of points earned.^[35]

Milestone clubs

There are five different clubs to which a runner registered with Parkrun can belong: the '10 club' for runners aged 17 or below who have completed 10 or more runs, and the '50 club', '100 club', '250 club' and '500 club' for anyone who has completed that number of runs. Anyone in the world entering a 'club' is given a T-shirt with a number on the back to represent the club they are in. So far, the cost of the T-shirts has been funded by sponsors and the T-shirts are free of charge to runners.

The T-shirts are colour coded: 10 (White); 50 (Red); 100 (Black); 250 (Green, although an older variant was gold & black) and 500 (Blue). There is also a shirt (purple) for those that have been a volunteer 25 times or more.

As of 28 September 2016:^[36]

Statistics

As of 24 October 2016, combined worldwide statistics for all events:^[37]

• Biggest attendance at one run: 1,874 (North Beach - Durban, South Africa)^[38]
• Female record holder (running): Hannah Walker (15:55, set at St Albans Parkrun on 27 July 2013),^[39] although Elaine Sherwin set a canicross-assisted record of 15:34 with her dog Daphne at Kingsbury Parkrun on 12 December 2015)
• Male record holder (running): Andrew Baddeley (13:48, set at Bushy parkrun on 11 August 2012) ^[40]
• Female record holder (wheelchair): Susan Cook (17:36, set at Dulwich parkrun on 23 August 2014) ^[41]
• Male record holder (wheelchair): Danny Sidbury (12:12, set at Dulwich parkrun on 19 March 2016) ^[42]
• Age-graded record holder: Fauja Singh (179.04%, set when finishing Valentines Parkrun in 38:34 on 31 March 2012, the day before his 101st birthday)

References

Further reading

• Bourne, Debra (2014). Parkrun: much more than just a run in the park. Chequered Flag Publishing. ISBN 9780956946072. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to parkrun.

• Official website