Has there been a more impactful public health initiative in the last 20 years than parkrun? From its humble beginnings in Bushy Park when founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt got together with a group of friends (13 runners and 5 volunteers) to run 5 km and have a coffee after, it has transformed into a global community of over 10 million registered participants, with over 2,500 events in 23 countries, changing lives through the simple but effective idea of being active and social outdoors, for free. 

The rise of parkrun is a remarkable story and one that Run was proud to help showcase as the charity celebrated its 20th birthday last week. Working closely with the parkrun team, we created media events in each of the four UK home nations (including at Bushy Park where it all began), as part of a week of media activity to mark this significant milestone in the parkrun story. 

 

The week started with the release of research by Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield (on parkrun’s official 20th birthday) highlighting parkrun’s value to the UK economy through the improved life satisfaction of those who take part in it. The research, based on a six-month study of new parkrunners, found that parkrun was worth £667 million a year to the UK and that life satisfaction improved for individuals after as few as two parkruns with tellingly, the greatest improvement being among those who are least active. 

Over 45,000 people who have registered for parkrun in the UK this year alone identified themselves as ‘completely inactive’. One of the statistics that was proudly repeated across the airwaves during the week by our parkrun spokespeople was that the average finish time for parkrun in UK is the slowest it’s ever been – a sure sign that parkrun is reaching those who need it most.  

The research also highlighted the unique effectiveness of parkrun over other initiatives designed to improved public and mental health with Professor Steve Haake, from Sheffield Hallam University, who led the research, concluding:

“In the current environment where funding is scarce, our research shows that initiatives like parkrun can be cost effective. parkrun overcomes barriers that stop people engaging people in physical activity by using methods often seen in psychotherapy – it is at the same time and same place every week and is free to take part. It also promotes strong friendships and more casual relationships, both of which are shown to improve mental health.”

With widespread coverage of the research story including on BBC Radio 5 Live, ITV News, Virgin Radio, talkSPORT, Times Radio, Metro, The New Scientist, PA (Press Association) and AP (Associated Press) where we were able to tell the story about the international expansion of parkrun and its work with the WHO to help tackle the issue of global inactivity, we moved on to our celebratory weekend media ‘moments’ at parkruns at Bushy Park, Tredegar House in Wales, Pollok Park in Scotland and Waterworks Park in Northern Ireland, working with parkrun event teams in each country to deliver positive wall-to-wall media coverage across the UK. 

 

BBC Breakfast anchored their Saturday morning programme from Bushy Park, combining live interviews with Paul Sinton Hewitt and Bushy Park parkrunners and volunteers with a package on Heaton Park parkrun in Manchester which showcased some of the incredible stories from the parkrun community. The coverage continued across the day on BBC One with packages on Bushy Park and parkruns across the country featuring on the early evening and late news programmes. 

The BBC’s live coverage on the morning and across the weekend also included BBC Radio 4 Today programme, BBC Online, a round of BBC Regional Radio interviews with parkrun CEO Russ Jefferys and Radio 1 Newsbeat.

We also amplified our on-the-ground offering at Bushy Park by delivering creative digital content, where we captured video content across the morning which was turned round and edited for immediate release on parkrun's Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok channels - with more content banked to run in the coming days and weeks.

Across 400 (and counting….) pieces of media coverage during the birthday week which also saw features on Sky News, Sky Sports News, S4C, ITV Wales, BBC Scotland, UTV (Ulster TV) alongside print and online pieces in The Observer, The Sun, The Independent, The Times and The Telegraph, we were able to celebrate and tell the incredible story of Paul and parkrun’s 20-year journey and shine a light on parkrun’s increasing societal impact from the development of its custodial programme, which now sees weekly parkrun events held in 25 prisons and young offenders institutions around the world, to its parkrun practice initiative where almost 2,000 GP surgeries are twinned with a local parkrun to socially prescribe parkrun. 

So, where will parkrun be in 20 years’ time? We’ll leave the last word to Paul Sinton-Hewitt: “parkrun is the smallest we are ever going to be – we are only going to get bigger. We are at 10 million now, we don’t know whether it’s going to be 15 million or 100 million but our aim as a charity is to make the world happier and healthier. In order to do that, we need to try and to bring parkrun events to every single person.”