Yesterday – Sunday 6 April 2025 – marked the 15th anniversary of junior parkrun, since the first small steps were taken by pioneering little parkrunners at Bushy Park. Paul Graham, a 5K parkrun enthusiast, developed the idea for the Bushy junior parkrun in 2010. He wanted to create an event specifically for children and young people and the first 2K junior parkrun was born as a monthly event.

Now a boisterous 15-year-old, junior parkrun is older than its finishers! Bushy Park was soon followed by Forest of Dean junior parkrun and the first weekly event was Southampton in 2013. Within the next two years, 70 more events were added. Today there are more than 400 junior parkrun events in the UK.

As junior parkrun grew, the parkrun charity was awarded £1.19 million from the London Marathon Foundation (LMF) in 2023, spread over three years, dedicated to helping support 300,000 young people at junior parkrun events. Since the partnership with London Marathon Foundation, there have been over 180,000 new registrations, and junior parkrunners have completed a 2K course over 1.6 million times – covering 3.2 million kilometres!

Scotland joined the family with the Helix junior parkrun in 2014. As of January 2025, Scotland has 35 junior parkrun events, stretching from Eyemouth and Dumfries in the south to Thurso in the north. The latest addition, Kings Park junior parkrun in Glasgow, launched in December last year.

Wales launched its first junior parkrun in Newport in March 2014, and the latest and 25th junior parkrun in Wales started in February 2025 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s National Indoor Athletics Centre. A third of all parkruns in Wales are junior events!

Northern Ireland began junior parkruns in 2015 at Portrush, the first junior event held on a Beach! Portrush is now only a year away from celebrating its 500th junior event!

Of course, junior parkrun was far too good an idea to be confined to the UK. Ireland started with Rush junior parkrun in North County Dublin in December 2015. Ireland now boasts 42  junior parkruns, with over 54,000 children registered to participate.

Australia held its first junior parkruns in 2018 and has six successful events in operation.

To find your nearest junior parkrun, click here.

To register for junior parkrun, click here.

Photo courtesy of parkrun UK