Overview
- The one millionth parkrun took place on Saturday at Bushy Park, the site of the first 2004 event, and drew a large turnout that included Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes.
- Founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt said he no longer handles day-to-day operations and is hoping to retire in about a year while praising the team that now runs the organisation.
- Chief executive Elizabeth Duggan framed the milestone as the start of a growth phase and set targets to grow weekly participation from roughly 500,000 now toward 750,000 by 2030 and to expand parkrun into more countries.
- Parkrun announced new participant recognition with milestone T-shirts for every 100 parkruns and rolled out a UK health and inclusion strategy that links the charity more closely with social prescribing and schools.
- The movement’s free, volunteer-led 5km events and junior 2km runs now operate at more than 2,800 locations in 23 countries, a scale organisers say depends on continuing volunteer support and charitable funding.