When Yvonne and Paul visited us from Harrogate three years ago, they took me down to Tuggeranong on the Saturday morning to introduce me to the parkrun phenomenon. That morning over 300 people of all shapes and sizes set off at eight o’clock on a 5 km run or walk along the edge of the lake and back.
I recall it as a relaxed event which, thanks to quite evident effective community organisation, accommodated a few babies in prams and dogs as well as keen-looking athletes in cutaway shorts.
Imagine my surprise, though, on picking them up from the airport two weeks ago to hear that it wasn’t the National Museum of Australia or the National Arboretum that was at the top of their to-do list in Canberra, but the parkrun at that place with far too many syllables for Yvonne and Paul to manage.
The first parkrun was held in Bushy Park, Teddington, in the UK, in October 2004. There were 13 starters and four volunteers. There are now parkrun organisations in 14 countries, including Canada, New Zealand and Russia.
There are about 200 parkrun locations in Australia, including four in the ACT.[1] Stats about the number of runners each week and other information is available on the website at www.parkrun.com.au/
Back home Paul and Yvonne are enthusiastic members of the Nidd Valley Road Runners, who support the Harrogate parkrun event. (I think they value the Nidd’s single syllable.)
All you have to do to take part in a parkrun anywhere in the world is to register online by the night before the event. Once you do that, you’ll be part of the recording system which sees everyone’s time and position published on the website within a couple of hours of its finish.
Participation is free, the only expectation being that everyone will volunteer at one of the events a few times a year.
At Tuggle-eerie-lingto-gong on that recent Saturday morning I took part without having registered, and enjoyed a well-organised and non-threatening event.
Next time I will register so that, as I walk the course, there will be absolutely no sense of being free a free loader! I have, after all, an impressive pedigree for a 5K course: I have two legs with relatively little knee and hip dysfunction, and my daughter-in-law is training for a half marathon. It’s just a nuisance that some of my other attributes seem to preclude the action of actually running.
But it will do me good to keep physically active and the parkrun movement provides another option. Perhaps I will see you there – or just compare notes with you online.
parkrun Australia’s sponsors are Medibank, Suncorp Bank and Stockland.
The link again is www.parkrun.com.au/
- [1] Paul says the four are at Girly- biff-grin, Gin-and-dare-her, Gorn-gargling and Tuggle-eerie-lington-gong.
