Councillors joined thousands of runners and volunteer helpers as parkrun marked its 20th anniversary across Brighton and Hove this weekend.
The weekly event started in 2004 as the Bushy Park Time Trial in London with just 13 runners – and first came to Brighton and Hove a few years later.
Since then, it has grown enormously and become a grassroots phenomenon, with a growing number of weekly runs at five locations in Brighton and Hove alone, starting every Saturday at 9am.
This weekend, the Labour council leader Bella Sankey and deputy leader Jacob Taylor took part in the Bevendean Down parkrun, covering 5km or just over three miles.
The junior event for 4 to 14-year-olds covers 2km on a Sunday morning. And while some of the runs include hills, the one that starts on the prom in Hove is flat.
Other locations include Hove Park, Preston Park and East Brighton Park, with a new juniors run in Queen’s Park. For more details, click here.
Former council leader Nancy Platts has been a champion of the community run movement locally and praised the “high-viz heroes” who act as marshals, timekeepers, barcode scanners and tail walkers.
She said: “Over 2,000 walkers, joggers, runners and wheelers of all ages and all abilities take part in our local parkruns every single week and our numbers continue to grow.
“Thanks to the support of Brighton and Hove City Council, we’ve added an eighth parkrun to our list – Queen’s Park juniors – so even more local children can now enjoy a free 2k event on a Sunday.”
This weekend was the second “councillors for parkrun” weekend, with local politicians showing their support, whether by taking part or by helping out in one of the vital volunteer roles.
The website for the parkrun in Hove Park said: “Brighton and Hove parkrun is a free weekly 5k event for participants of all standards which takes place every Saturday at 9am in Hove Park.
“It offers an opportunity for all the local community, regardless of age or gender, to come together on a regular basis to enjoy the outdoors and get physically active.
“We want to encourage people to run, jog, walk and volunteer together – this event is truly open to all and best of all it really is free.
“Taking part is easy – just register before your first ever parkrun. The great thing is that you only ever need to do this once. Then just set your alarm for Saturday morning and get yourself there.
“Each week we enjoy a post-parkrun coffee in the café – please feel free to come and join us. Maybe swap stories about your parkrun that day, chat to other parkrunners over a cup of tea or coffee and just be a part of this community.”
The founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt said that parkrun was about people in the same community gathering together, adding: “Parkrun is a charity. The aim is to make the world happier and healthier.
As the event spread to Brighton and Hove and other places, Mr Sinton-Hewitt said: “I went from ‘let’s grow this running event’ into something that’s more strategic, around mental health, physical health and wellbeing.”
Almost 2,000 GP surgeries around the world are now twinned with a parkrun so that they can refer patients for their mental and physical wellbeing.
Gorgeous run this morning from #Bevendean with amazing views of the City. Congratulations to @parkrunUK & everyone taking part! 🎂 ☀️ 🏃🏽♀️ https://t.co/G1pkklvk3I
— Bella Sankey (@BellaSankey) October 5, 2024
Parkruns are also held in 25 prisons and young offender institutions worldwide, touching the lives of more than 10,000 people in custody.
Junior parkrun started in 2010, a 2k event for children from 4 to 14 and their families. It takes place on a Sunday morning in the UK, Ireland and Australia.
Mr Sinton-Hewitt said that GP referrals, prisons and junior parkruns were key to attracting people who were not already exercising.
Parkrun is now held at more than 2,500 locations. It is still free to take part. And more than 10 million people have registered worldwide, with almost 400,000 having been completely inactive when they registered.
Almost six million people have completed a parkrun course at least once, more than 900,000 people have volunteered and, including the junior event, people have crossed a parkrun finish line more than a hundred million times around the world.
People often become regulars and Saturdays simply become “parkrun day”. Mr Sinton-Hewitt added: “We love everybody – the fast, the slow.”
He said that fast runners had lots of other events where they could choose to race but parkrun offered much more than running.
He said: “It’s about getting outside, about doing some activity but, most importantly, it’s about being part of the community.”
Note, this story has been amended to correct and make clear the distances – 5k for the Saturday parkrun events and 2k for the Sunday junior runs.
Find out more here:
https://www.parkrun.org.uk/
Photo opp you say? Followed by sound of elected councillors scrambling for the their running gear to race there in time for the photos and inevitable tweets.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Park Run is a great thing, just find it amusing how desperate our elected representatives often seem to associate themselves with initiatives that are completely community led. Yes Park Run use open spaces in the city, but it would be nuts if the council actually tried to stop people accessing fitness and stopped them. The council hasn’t, and doesn’t, really do anything significant (other than not banning them from running in parks). It’s the organisers, marshals, and others who need the credit – a great initiative, a great charity, and good work.
Trevor, what you are saying is incorrect. I am one of the organisers of parkrun and BHCC have been consistently helpful over the years, working with parkrun to make sure that other events in the parks can co-exist with us.
Also, I know that many councillors take part in parkrun, as volunteers and runners.
Indeed several councillors are regular runners / helpers and this has been mentioned on B&H news before
This is from last year for example
https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2023/09/16/councillors-turn-out-for-parkruns-across-brighton-and-hove/
They usually post about their runs quite regularly on their social medias too, looking like they’ve just had quite a workout!