Around 400,000 parkrunners, enabled by up to 50,000 volunteers, were in action over the weekend (4-5 October 2025) as parkrun celebrated its 21st anniversary in style.

It was a damp and chilly Saturday, 2 October 2004, when 13 runners and five volunteers arrived in London's Bushy Park for a free, timed 5K run, known then as the Bushy Park Time Trial. Little did those 18 people realise they were parkrun pioneers, using pen and paper to record results, and washers from the local hardware store as finish tokens!

parkrun proliferation was not a thing in those early days. On Saturday, 6 January 2007, the second event was launched at Wimbledon Common. By the end of 2007, there were still only seven events, including one in Zimbabwe! The parkrun name was adopted in 2008, and its founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt CBE, has stayed true to his four founding principles: free, weekly, for everyone, forever.

A significant milestone was reached in 2010, when junior parkrun was launched with the 2K events held on Sunday mornings, with all the familiar parkrun protocols, plus additional safeguards for the 4-14 year old chidren taking part (and volunteering). There are now more than 500 junior parkruns operating worldwide.

The exponential growth of parkrun means there are now events in over 2,700 locations across 23 countries, with more than 11 million registered parkrunners. Another significant milestone was passed earlier this year when the millionth unique person volunteered at parkrun, demonstrating the positive impact that parkrun has on the community.

Among the five volunteers at that inaugural event in Bushy Park 21 years ago were Paul and Joanne Sinton-Hewitt. runABC's Kent-based reporter Alan Newman tracked them down on parkrun's 21st-anniversary weekend.

The Sinton-Hewitts supported Leybourne Lake parkrun's 10th-anniversary celebration, where fancy dress was very much in evidence. For the record, MV65-69 category runner Paul ran the two-lap course around picturesque lakes in 24:39, while VW60-64 participant Joanne recorded 33:53.

The Bacon Butty Brigade (pictured below) had fun in the sun at Leybourne while raising money for the parkrun Global charity. Visit Bacon Butty Chris Gedge's JustGiving page here to donate...

As for your reporter, Alan ran the Maidstone parkrun in 24:15, before recycling his fee for this story to the parkrun Global charity via Chris Gedge's JustGiving page to help celebrate the wonderful achievements of parkrun over 21 years!

Here's to the next 21 years, when Alan hopes to be still parkrunning, aged 93!

Images courtesy of parkrun blog and Leybourne Lakes parkrun on Facebook