Continuing our 2020 series of Seven Hills Academy sessions, Seven Hills was delighted to welcome parkrun CEO Nick Pearson to the firm to tell the story and answers questions on the incredible rise of parkrun – the world’s largest physical activity event.
Having started as a gathering of just 13 keen runners in Bushy Park one morning in October 2004, parkrun has since had more than seven million participants, of all abilities and ages, signed up across 2,000 events in 21 countries – most recently Germany and Japan.
It has been, as Nick said, a case of having “the right idea at the right time”. He attributed parkrun’s growth to the prevalence of social media, as well as a generational shift, where in an increasingly busy world, people are looking for less structured and less formal physical activities.
The goal of parkrun is ‘helping communities to be healthier and happier’. In this vein, parkun currently operates in 27 prisons in the UK and Ireland, with 15% of the country’s current prison population having participated.
Learn more about parkrun here.