Parkrun at 20 years old: how a gentle jog turned into a 5km Saturday morning obsession

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The event, which is celebrating its anniversary today, has grown into a global phenomenon – and made us feel a whole lot betterTwenty years ago, on a windy, autumnal Saturday morning, 13 runners showed up to a park in south-west London for an event called the Bushy Park Time Trial. A 5km course was plotted and the organiser, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, a computer programmer who grew up in South Africa, bought washers from a hardware store to hand out as finish tokens. The times were tapped up on a laptop afterwards in a local Caffè Nero.This Saturday, the weather hadn’t much improved – overcast, with the sun straining to peek through – and the venue was the same: picturesque Bushy Park with its resident red deer squaring up, ready to rut. But pretty much everything else about the impromptu get-together has evolved. Since 2008, it has been known as Parkrun and there are now 2,500 weekly events – all 5km, all free – in 22 countries, everywhere from the slopes of Mount Etna to 25 UK prisons to the Falkland Islands. In a typical week, around 350,000 people will take part. Runner’s World hails it a “global phenomenon”. Continue reading…

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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/oct/05/parkrun-at-20-years-old-how-a-gentle-jog-turned-into-a-5km-saturday-morning-obsession

Author : Tim Lewis

Publish date : 2024-10-05 22:15:32

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