Parkrun turned 20 this year. The event, originally called the Bushy Park Time Trial, began with 18 people in 2004, but has since gone global. Every weekend, over 100,000 runners take part in 23 countries across six continents.
The runners and volunteers come for fitness, friendship, physical or mental health, to prove they can run 5km, or just to have fun. Founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt loved running but a big motivation was ensuring that each week he, “spent an hour to two with my mates.”
“It makes me smile”
Steven Fairbairn, Bramley parkrunner
At Bramley Park, when event director Jean Hollings spoke of the run, her face lit up: “We’re all equal, it doesn’t matter. We have lawyers, doctor, taxi drivers, unemployed… Everybody comes, some run it some walk it, some do a mixture and that’s the beauty of it, you go at your own speed”.
That mix of participants was no more keenly felt than 8 years ago when one of the runners collapsed with a heart attack. Arthur Wood of Pudsey, now 76, had taken his 8-year-old grandson Euan to Bramley parkrun. On the way up the hill he suffered a heart attack, breaking two teeth when he fell. Some of the runners were medical workers and luckily the Bramley event had been gifted a defibrillator by a local Pure Gym. That gift saved Arthur’s life.
Following a triple heart bypass, and in spite of his age and illness, Arthur Wood recovered and returned to Bramley parkrun to train for the Bradford 5k, which he later ran to raise money for British Heart Foundation.
Video from Bramley Park parkrun in October
Bramley’s parkrun on the anniversary
Saturday 5th October was the 386th Bramley parkrun, there were 18 different running clubs involved with 29 volunteers and 165 finishers. One of the participants was Steven Fairbairn, 60, of Pudsey. Steven has ran over 130 parkruns and says it has turned his fitness around.
“It’s taken me from being a couch potato to- I was going to say athlete, I’m not so sure about being an athlete. But, I feel better, it makes me smile as you can see now. I come every Saturday and afterwards we’ll have a little drink and a natter in the local pub, it’s great” said Steven.
“Parkrun increases life satisfaction and is worth £667 million a year to the UK economy”
Sheffield Hallam University
Recent research from two Sheffield universities has shown that parkrun improved ‘life-satisfaction’ and this had a knock-on-effect on the public purse. The researchers estimated that parkrun added over £650 million to UK economy each year, with the bulk of those benefits coming as savings from healthier people needing fewer services from the NHS.
The parkrun motto is simple: parkrun stands for ‘a healthier, happier planet’ and that is certainly true here in Bramley.
