Modern Life: What is a Parkrun? Christian Wolmar

Just occasionally new technology blends in perfectly with community spirit to create a great new concept. That’s how the Parkrun was born.

It is, basically, a run in the park, but with a difference. It is a five-kilometre race – though the organisers hate you calling it that – which takes place at nearly 450 locations across the country at 9am every Saturday.

I am a Parkrun addict. I have run precisely 87 of them on courses as far-ranging as Derby, Milton Keynes and Tewkesbury, as well as in several places in London, where I live.

There are, in fact, 47 Parkruns in London alone, which is the birthplace of the idea. It was conceived by Paul SintonHewitt, who earned a CBE for his efforts, and the original run, in Bushy Park in 2004, now regularly attracts 800 runners.

It works like this: volunteers act as marshals and timekeepers, and runners print off a free barcode from the Parkrun website. They can then turn up to any run they like and at the finish they are given a little tag with another barcode on it and both are scanned in by volunteers. The big advantages are that it is not necessary to book in advance and the races are always held at the same time and venues every week, come rain or shine.

There is, I accept, an obsessive characteristic to Parkruns, stimulated by the fact that your result comes through within a couple of hours by email or text, along with a wealth of statistics which ensure that the time you achieved on a wet Saturday in February 2009 will be recorded for ever more or at least as long as there is an internet.