parkrun Founder Praises Volunteers

30 DEC2010

parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt has highlighted the role of volunteers in the continued success of the 5k running time trail event that has swept across the UK from modest origins in 2004.

He said: "A year ago we had 23 different parkrun events across the world, today there are 54 a growth of 134%. In the same period 47,000 runners ran 241,000 times bringing the total number of runs since we started to over 446,000.

"While there are over 100,000 registered parkrunners only 67,000 have run a parkrun: getting the number of reluctant parkrunners down is a big target of mine in 2011. The number of PB's recorded in 2010 doubled all previous recorded PB's while the average number of PB's has been consistent at around 23% per year.

"We only started recording volunteers contributions at the end of 2006. Since this time 42,000 volunteers hours have been gifted to parkrun. 24,000 of these came from 4,600 of you in 2010. What an achievement! Congratulations to you for making such a considerable investment in your community."

2011 promises to be an even busier year for parkrun with a grant from the Greater London Authority to implement 20 new parkruns in London over the next two years. In addition new events are planned in Liverpool, Falkirk and a number of other locations around the UK.