Little run becomes big global sensation
Every Saturday morning, hundreds gather in parks for a fun run. Annabel Reid joins the throng.
The heavens are threatening to open on a Saturday morning at Western Springs Park, with a grey backdrop disrupted by dozens of active-wear-clad enthusiasts, who emerge from all corners of the park.
They are gathering for Parkrun — a free,
5km timed running event which happens every Saturday morning in 1990 parks in 21 countries. The crucial part, and what organisers and runners hold most dear, is that Parkrun is a communityrun event.
“Each one is run by volunteers, so people organising it as the run directors, or down to holding a stopwatch or marshalling the course,” Kent Stead, one of the run directors at Western Springs says.
Happily, for the 155 participants on this day, the rain holds off just long enough for everyone to complete the three laps of the picturesque pond.
Parkrun began in Bushy Park, southwest of London, 15 years ago this week.
Founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt organised it and 13 runners turned up on that first day. There was no hint that it would turn into the global running it has become.
Its success spread, and other runs opened up in parks across the UK, before it went international.
“What we started in 2004 is exactly the same as what we do now, apart from the fact that there were only 13 runners at that first event and now there are 350,000 every week,” Sinton-Hewitt tells the Weekend Herald, from his home in London.
Parkrun arrived in New Zealand in
2012 and has grown to include 29 events throughout the country.
Stead says it’s grown to become more than just a run.
“It’s the community side of it. “It’s that every Saturday you’re going to see the same people, and they may be people you may not normally interact with in your everyday life, but you have a common thread, which is Parkrun.”
There are people with prams, dogs, small children — everyone is welcome, from elites to tail-end Charlies, and no one is left behind.
“We have a formal volunteer role for a tail walker and that person’s role is to make sure they’re the last person to cross the line,” says Stead.
Sinton-Hewitt was appointed a CBE for services to Grassroots Sport Participation in 2014.
In 2004 he was unemployed and unable to run seriously due to an injury.
He was motivated to create an inclusive, kind approach to sport after suffering bullying at school and other personal challenges which led to a breakdown in the 1990s.
The success of the event, he says, is the simplicity.
“Over the past five years, [the average time in] every single one of our runs is getting slower year by year, which means that we’re inviting more people along who walk the event. Everyone is welcome.”
Participants register online and print off a personalised barcode, which is scanned at the end of every run to give an accurate time, allowing them to mark their progress from week to week.
It’s a grassroots operation, but Stead says the commitment of volunteers is what makes it work.
“I think once people have done a few runs, they’re part of the community, so they feel an obligation to give back. We ask that people volunteer three times a year. As long as people do that, then all of our volunteer positions are filled,” he says.
While the first 15 years of Parkrun have been a runaway success, its reliance on volunteers and sponsorship means it’s a constant project to keep going.
“It’s a charity, so there’s no drive to make profits, it’s just simply to make sure we’re sustainable, that we can continue doing what we’re doing,” Sinton-Hewitt says.
He has no plan for global dominance or to crowd out public spaces. He wants to see more events spring up, so people do not have to travel far to take part.
“I know it’s going to get better. I know it’s going to get bigger. I know that more people will be involved, more communities, more countries. I see no reason why any community in the world shouldn’t have the same playground that we created in 2004 for our community. It’s such a positive, good thing.
“It’s so simple,” he says.