Better Health For All

parkrun was a small idea with a small p that has grown into something I could never have imagined when I started the first parkrun in London’s Bushy Park in 2004. In fact, it was only ever intended to be a single event and for the first two years it was. I still find it hard to believe that it has captured the imagination of three million people around the world who have walked, run and volunteered at a parkrun event.

parkruns are free, timed, 5k events that are coordinated entirely by volunteers and take place in public areas of open space every Saturday morning. Each parkrun is held every week, in the same place, throughout the year, and most events finish near a local cafe for the all the important post-parkrun socialising.

A parkrun isn’t a race – it’s a timed 5k event for walkers, runners, volunteers or, if you’re not quite sure about the idea just yet, spectators as well! The best kept secret of parkrun is that it isn’t really about the running at all – it’s the people who you meet along the way.

Back in the beginning, I was a keen club runner with a long term injury who missed the social side that comes with being part of a running club. I wanted to do something to fill that void in my life, so I invited a group of my friends to run a 5k loop in our local park, which I would time and publish the results, and then we would go for a coffee afterwards in the park cafe. My friends could run, and I could see them – it sounded like a good idea to me!

There were less than 20 of us on that overcast morning in 2004 – 13 runners and five volunteers in fact. In early 2007 when our numbers had increased beyond 300, we started a second event at nearby Wimbledon Common. Far from splitting the numbers however, it created a whole new community. Before long there were volunteers in Leeds, Wales and Scotland who asked to replicate the idea in their communities, and in 2009 we expanded to Denmark, our first international territory. And the rest as they say is history.

Last weekend, more than 250,000 people at 1,500 locations across 20 countries took part in parkrun.

On the surface the parkrun concept is incredibly simple and the format hasn’t changed since that first morning – free, timed, weekly, 5k, for everyone who wants to take part. What has changed however is the way that we have evolved from attracting mainly club runners in the very beginning to people from all walks of life.

Over time we have gradually broken down many of the traditional barriers to taking part in in regular physical activity, and we’ve grown to a stage where we can proactively engage with the people who are the least likely to take part in physical activity and volunteering – and therefore potentially have the most to benefit from it.

Families can take part together, you can run with your dog on a short lead, walkers are supported by a volunteer Tail Walker, support groups for 10 different disabilities and long term health conditions have been established to facilitate involvement with parkrun, and participation is recognised rather than performance – milestone shirts for 50,100, 250 and 500 completed parkruns, and for volunteering 25 times, provide a significant incentive for many parkrunners.

There is still so much more that we need to do to change what it means, and looks like, to be physically active, but we are on the right track. I genuinely believe that parkrun can help to make the world a healthier and happier place, and we’ve only just begun…

Written by parkrun founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt CBE. To find out more about parkrun and to locate your nearest event, click here.