PARK RUN South Africa will celebrate an impressive milestone on Saturday with the 1-millionth “different” person to volunteer or participate in the event.
For the past 13 years thousands of people have gathered around the country to do a parkrun starting at 8am every Saturday.
South Africa’s ultra marathon champion Bruce Fordyce brought the idea to the country after he was introduced to it in the UK in 2011.
The global movement now has 10 million participants across hundreds of countries and Fordyce says no matter where in the world you are, parkrun follows the same format; it starts at 8am, over 5km and it is free.
Parkrun was started by Paul Sinton-Hewitt in 2000.
“He's a boytjie from Potchefstroom Boys High and started parkrun in October 2004 in the UK. He's an old friend of mine, so when I went across in 2011 to run the London Marathon, Paul said to me, please come and run Bushy Park parkrun, which was one of his parkruns. I didn't really want to go because I was running a marathon the next day, but he persuaded me and thank goodness he did because then I saw the magic. I saw what a wonderful, wonderful thing it is and so I said to Paul, I've got to start it in South Africa. He said that's why I invited you to come, because I knew I had to just show you and then you would understand.”
The first parkrun in South Africa took place at Delta Park in Johannesburg in November 2011 with 29 people.
“If you told me that one day there would be a million, I would have said to you, you're on drugs. We just couldn't fathom that, but 29 people came and now next Saturday our millionth different person will participate in the parkrun,” said Fordyce.
He said people naturally take to parkrun after participating in just one run or walk
“So what happens is as soon as people see parkrun, they just fall in love with it because it's all-embracing. You can be an elite runner and you can be really slow and unathletic and we don't care. We're still going to welcome you, and you're still going to get your time, and you're still going to do parkrun. In South Africa, it should be called parkwalk because more than half our people walk,” he joked.
Currently there are 220 live parkrun events in South Africa and every week they welcome around 2000 new people to the parkrun family, apart from the 40 000 people who regularly participate every Saturday.
Three parkruns take place on Durban’s beachfront; North Beach, Durban Point and Blue Lagoon, and many more across KZN.
Fordyce was in Durban this weekend for the 50th birthday of Westville Athletic Club where he was the guest speaker. He made special mention of Derek Price, Steve Atkins and Sanet Beukes from the club.
“They're famous and when I started running, the Westville guys were amongst the best.”
However, yesterday at 8am he participated in the Fig Tree parkrun near Hillcrest.
Following a knee replacement in July he couldn't run but after a few weeks he walked the parkrun.
“And it was the one place I could go to where I was more than welcome and I wouldn't be made to feel like an idiot if I was near the back and I was slow, and that’s how I started and now I'm running again. The wonderful thing about parkrun is how people of all abilities can come and you can run, jog, walk, or you can volunteer”.
Fordyce is head of Parkrun Africa and says the events are coordinated by volunteers who do the timing, marshalling and the scanning of the barcodes.
All you've got to do is register once and you get a barcode number for life.
He says the event is so addictive that some people are parkrun tourists who fly from city to city and even countries to participate in different venues.
“It’s unbelievable what parkrun is for the economy of some places; the B&Bs get full, the restaurants get full, it's a little bit like stamp collecting on steroids.
“You're a stamp collector but you haven't done Port Nolloth, so that's missing and no matter what it takes you will do Port Nolloth, you will just get there,” said Fordyce.
