parkrun is a free, weekly, 5k and 2k community event in open spaces around the world.

Bushy Park, 13 runners, five volunteers, a stopwatch, some washers from the local hardware store and a piece of paper. Then it was off to the cafe for a natter.

More of the same but with growing numbers – up to 155 at our peak.

Still a single event but now with up to 378 people turning up each week – causing a bit of concern to the park authorities! Number of finishes recorded this year: 9,660. Then boom! parkrun goes from a single event to seven in a year. Our ability to deliver simultaneous events is proved at Wimbledon and quickly evolves to Richmond, Banstead, Leeds and Brighton. Then our first international event is created in Zimbabwe. Number of finishes recorded this year: 24,972.

Five more new events along with our first Scottish event in Glasgow and our first Welsh event in Cardiff. 54,428 parkrunners enjoy the experience this year.

We add our first event in Denmark, and another 15 parkrun events in total. 112,260 parkruns recorded this year.

parkrun starts in Northern Ireland!! The number of parkruns increases to 242,075 as we add 30 new events.

A big year with 55 new events: The first events are delivered in Australia, South Africa and Poland. There’s also a special event in the UK military base at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan.

junior parkrun begins: a weekly 2k event aimed at four to 14 year olds.

parkrun is introduced to the USA. We achieve 90 new events and a whopping 992,308 parkruns.

We expand into the Republic of Ireland.

parkrun begins in Singapore, Italy, Russia and France (not currently running in France or Russia).

Weekly parkrunner attendance exceeds 60,000 for the first time.

junior parkrun begins in Ireland.

parkrun is launched in Canada, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The parkrun Apricot clothing range is launched.

parkrun is introduced into prisons with big success, the tail walker role becomes mandatory and the Virtual Volunteer app is successfully rolled out.

The first parkrun in a young offenders institution starts and the parkrun practice initiative is introduced to promote social prescribing and lifestyle medicine.

parkrun launches in Japan and Malaysia, junior parkrun begins in Australia, more than 2,000 events are live and we reach a record six million registrations!

parkrun Forever launches - an opportunity for people to help financially safeguard parkrun’s future via monthly donations.

Over 60,000 parkrunners completed our first health and wellbeing survey, making it one of the biggest ever independent studies into physical activity.

Started with huge attendance records worldwide, with more than 400,000 people taking part across a single weekend.

parkrun launches in the Netherlands and we continue to see the average finish time slowing; with an average finish time of 32:30 in 2020 compared to 22:17 in 2005.

Then the global pandemic occurred and events were paused around the world.
But finally in 2021 parkrun Austria started.

UK parkrun returns from the lockdowns! New milestone clubs were created for volunteering and walking/running to support our view that all participation at parkrun is equal. Launch of the parkwalk campaign and optional parkwalker volunteer role to encourage more people to experience the joy and incredible benefits of walking at parkrun.

The Event Management System (EMS) is rolled out globally to make processing results smoother and enable volunteer management to be performed anywhere. A new global five year strategy sets out the direction of the future of parkrun. Over 2,300 events around the world and more than 9 million registered parkrunners.