Parkrun™, an illustrious running program was created in 2004 by Paul Sinton-Hewitt, here in the UK. Since then it has spread too many different countries and locations, such as; Denmark, Poland and USA. The second country was Denmark joining the program in 2009. There have been 3.93 million runs since it had started. Every Saturday runners embark on a 5 kilometre “race” and it is free, the only required is to register online. This is for a reason; you receive a barcode at which you will be asked to handover to scan with a positioning ticket you receive at the end of the race. When these two are scanned collectively they will give you a time and the company will keep a record of these races you do on the website.
Living close to a Parkrun course (Black Park Parkrun), I have witnessed it expand. This course has been going on for 5 years now. When I asked one of the more experienced runners who has been doing the run for 3 years now, he said in a statement “There were only 160 runners when I started”. There are now just over 500 people attending these runs weekly. This is remarkable considering there are over 100 more runners attending weekly in the last year alone. Although Parkrun does keep a record of your results, this is not for a competition purposes. This is because the “race” isn’t a competition if you don’t want it to be. This helps inspire all sorts of people to come; young, old, small and large to enjoy the unique experience. These people don’t just come to race each other; there are multiple reasons why people do this run; simply to become fitter, to be part of the atmosphere. Attending this event is more than just a run, when you’re with others you are motivated to run further and faster which increases physical health more rapidly. Some people purely go to achieve goals, a personal-best (PB) and improve on a weekly basis to be the best they can be. Others just go for the social aspect of a simple run, in the wilderness along with a normal chat and coffee afterwards. Another runner said “It’s cheap hobby”.
These indications show that it not only improves your fitness and stamina but also improves your social life. However there would be no event, without the help of the dedicated volunteers. They set up the course every week, track you times as you come into the finishing line, along with scanning your barcode. They go through 500 or so every Saturday, and then they take the time to upload all the results onto the website for everyone to see. These volunteers are key part of the organisation that keeps it together. They have been a huge aspect to why Parkrun has become an international phenomenon.
