Many parkruns would be happy with a turnout of 136 participants. On Saturday 31 August 2024, there was that number of hi-viz volunteers in Bushy Park, ensuring the safety of more than 6,000 runners and walkers on the historic occasion of the 1,000th Bushy parkrun!

Bushy Park is the home of parkrun where 13 people ran the inaugural 'Bushy Park 5K time trial' on 2 October 2004. Chris Owens (Ranelagh Harriers, 18:47) and Rachel Rowan (Thames Turbo Triathlon, 21:01) were the inaugural first finishers and Simon Lawrence (Ranelagh Harriers, 29:39) was unwittingly the first ever parkrun tail runner.

The exponential growth of parkrun has since become a global phenomenon. As of 31 August 2024, there were 1,284 parkrun events held in the UK every weekend. There are more than 2,300 parkrun events in over 22 countries, spanning five of the seven continents worldwide. The event has over 9 million registered parkrunners and nearly 800,000 volunteers.

Milestones are a big thing in the parkrun world, with colour-coded T-shirts available for significant numbers of appearances as a participant or volunteer. Now parkrun has reached the astonishing milestone of 1,000 events at its birthplace – almost 20 years of Bushy Park parkruns every Saturday, apart from the Covid-related pause.

There were 6,204 recorded finishers at Bushy Park, with joint tail walkers Richard Bowes and Joanna Turnbull home in 1:01:55. At the sharp end, the first finishers were Ollie Jermy (U17 Waverley Harriers, 15:26) and Sophie Fairbanks (Sale Harriers Manchester, 17:06). Ollie recorded his best time at Bushy Park and Sophie was a first timer at the venue.

Proving you are never too old to start, Miriam Jarrett made her parkrun debut in the W85-89 category and was the highest age-graded runner with 90.13% for her 35:37 in the 3,860th position overall!

The hard-working core team of volunteers at Bushy deserve some respite after managing this huge 1,000th celebration one week after an equally unique 999th special parkrun, themed on the 999 emergency services, attended by 1,787 parkrunners.

For further news on the 999th and 1,000th Bushy parkruns click here.

An extraordinary photo of the first-timers briefing is courtesy of Bushy parkrun