Parkes' Northparkes Oval Parkrun has been held for the 100th time, the exciting milestone reached on May 27.
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The Northparkes Oval Parkrun is part of the worldwide movement where each Saturday nearly 300,000 people run, walk or volunteer at one of 2454 parkrun events across 26 countries.
In Australia there are 470 events between all states and territories.
Parkrun began for the first time in 2004 with just 13 runners in Bushy Park, London.
The first Parkrun in Australia was launched at Main Beach, Gold Coast in 2011 and 10 years later Parkrun arrived in Parkes on February 6 after earlier debuting in Orange, Mudgee and Dubbo.
Since 2021, more than 3721 individual runners have completed the undulating 5-kilometre course with views of Memorial Hill to the south and farming land to the north in a tranquil setting, including birdlife and kangaroos.
Runners from 77 clubs from across Australia have scanned their barcode at Parkes as the event continues to grow.
The Northparkes Oval male course record is held by former Alectown resident and Olympic marathon runner Scott Westcott in 15.51 minutes and female course record is held by Steph Beck in 21 minutes. This record was only broken during the 102nd event with the previous record of 21.30 held by Jorja Davis from event number 17 on May 29, 2021.
Steph's home Parkrun is St Peters and she has completed 61 Parkruns at 13 different locations.
Parkes' most regular Parkrunner at Northparkes is Tony Melhuish who is nearing his 100th Parkrun while Dan Greef has volunteered the most times (90 occasions)!
How it works
Parkrun is unique as it is free - totally run by volunteers and is accessible to everyone as the most inclusive event in world athletics, perhaps even world sport. Participants turn up by 8am on a Saturday morning to take part in the event.
Participants that register are given a barcode which records their times and event/s participated in, no matter where in the world they attend a Parkrun event.
Parkrun is not a race, it's about recreational runners and walkers and those searching for something meaningful and consistent in their fitness journey. Come and join the elite runners, first timers, people with prams or dogs, families, couples, solo runners, people trying to lose weight or gain new friends.
The Parkrun movement improves not only physical health but certainly the mental health of all who turn up - rain, hail or shine - across the nation to scan their barcode, log a run or volunteer for their local community.
Interested in joining?
To participate, go to the Northparkes Oval at 7.50am on Saturday mornings. For those that are keen, you can register at https://www.parkrun.com.au/register and join nearly 900,000 Australians who have participated in Parkrun since 2011. The friendly team led by Dan Greef and Vicki Warwick are waiting at Northparkes Oval to welcome you to Parkrun!
