It may be a fitness phenomenon, but parkrun is emphatically no sweat for Rosanna Greenstreet...
On a freezing December morning, I follow the hordes in black Lycra to the starting line in Bushy Park. I myself am Lycra-free: running is not my thing. But, for the past two years – and rather to my bemusement – my husband has been getting up early most Saturdays to take part in the 9 am parkrun in Bushy. And so, it seems, have over a thousand others.
While I, grim-faced and chilly, pull my overcoat around me, the runners cheerily limber up. Newcomers attend a quick briefing by hi-vis jacket-clad volunteers and then everyone lines up, including a visually impaired young man who runs with a guide, as well as people with children, babies in buggies and dogs on leads.
This week’s run director is Andy Wingate from New Malden, who has been a parkrunner for 12 years and helps to organise the event about once a month. Once he has started things off, we walk together towards the finish line. Today’s runners, he says, range in age from four to the 84-year-old doing his 600th parkrun and include a so-called ‘parkrun pilgrim’, from Melbourne, who is keen to take part in the original parkrun.
For it was here in Bushy, in 2004, that the brand was founded by Zimbabwe-born Paul Sinton-Hewitt with just 13 runners and four volunteers. Today it attracts nearly two million people at 587 locations across the globe.
The free, 5km timed Saturday runs are delivered entirely by volunteers and people of any ability – from beginners to Olympians – are encouraged to take part. You don’t even have to ‘run’ – walking the course is totally acceptable. A ‘tail walker’ brings up the rear to ensure that no one is left behind.
And that inclusiveness is key to the popularity of this exercise phenomenon.
“Parkrun is all about people,” Sinton-Hewitt reflects via email. “We have worked hard over 14 years to break down the barriers to getting involved; to make it something that everyone can do in their own way.
“The fact that you can walk, jog, run, volunteer or simply come along and socialise means that our events attract people from all sections of society who otherwise may never have met. For me, seeing people of all ages and backgrounds parkrunning together with a smile on their face is the most joyful experience.”
Back in 2004, Sinton-Hewitt was at a low point in his life.
“I had been fired from my job and had suffered an injury that would keep me away from running for a long period,” he explains. “Those two factors had disconnected me from my friendship circles.
“I wanted to find a way of getting my friends together regularly, so I came up with the idea of a social run around Bushy Park, not too far from where I live.
“I felt that 5k was a manageable distance – short enough for newcomers and long enough for more experienced runners – and I offered to time everybody and collate the results so that people could track their improvements over time.
“The all-important ‘catch’ was that everyone would go for breakfast in the park cafe afterwards, and it was this that really set the tone for every other parkrun and has played a big part in our success as a socially-focused, community-based event that always finishes with a hot drink in a local cafe.”
Stories of how parkrun has enriched lives are legion. There are those who have lost staggering amounts of weight, achieved remarkable new fitness levels and gone on to complete marathons; lonely people who have built strong friendship groups; even those who have met and married through the events.
In November 2017 the first parkrun for prisoners took place at HMP Haverigg in Cumbria and other prisons in the UK and Ireland have since taken up the metaphorical baton. There are more than 600 GP practices, known as ‘parkrun practices’, where the run is prescribed for physical and mental health. And, at the end of last year, it was announced that Sport England would be using £3m of National Lottery money, over three years, to support the creation of 200 new events aimed at broadening the reach of parkrun still further.
“My hope is that it will continue to evolve, from being seen as a run around a park to a major health intervention,” says Sinton-Hewitt.
Given the boost to society that parkrun provides, it is no surprise that its founder was included in the 2014 Birthday Honours List, although his CBE came as a shock to the man himself.
“I am truly so proud of this award – it’s the most unexpected thing ever to happen to me. Every passing day I know that people’s lives are changed for the better through parkrun and that’s enough for me.”
Parkrun is now a UK-based charity operating in 20 countries and due to launch in Japan this April. There are 23 staff members, but Sinton-Hewitt is not one of them.
“Over the past couple of years, I’ve stepped back a bit to work on a new project stemming from hundreds of conversations with parkrunners. As hard as we worked to make events accessible and inclusive, one barrier persisted: the lack of sports clothing to fit everyone.”
The solution? A new range of sportswear called CONTRA.
“This is a personal mission, driven by frustration with an injustice: that sports brands still exclude most people from physical activity. CONTRA has no gender-specific colours, plus advertising that seeks to support and understand instead of patronise and shame. It’s ethically produced with quality fabric and made in European factories that pay a fair wage. All profits go to parkrun.”
As today’s run draws to a close, the volunteers begin to pack up. One group of runners cracks open a bottle of prosecco to mark someone’s latest milestone run. All over Bushy, I see people in official parkrun t-shirts celebrating their 50, 100, 250 or even 500 runs.
Eventually, I catch up with my husband and his chums as they good-naturedly discuss whether they’ve done a personal best, or ‘pb’ (participants are all allocated a barcode and their times are recorded and put online). We head to the Pheasantry for a cuppa. And though I am neither sweaty nor dressed in Lycra, I now totally get the appeal of parkrun.
To find your nearest event go to:parkrun.org.uk