That’s right, parkrun South Africa has reached one million registered members! A considerable feat, seeing as the event had over 5 million runners registered worldwide by October 2018.

According to SA founder, seven time Comrades marathon winner, Bruce Fordyce, 6.8 million runs have taken place since its inception seven years ago.

“This seems incredible when we consider that just over seven years ago we numbered just 26,” writes Fordyce in the organisation’s weekly newsletter.

He further states that on ‘a good’ Saturday morning parkrun Southern Africa boasts close to 60 000 participants.

“At its capacity the famous Ellis Park rugby stadium hosts about 60 000 fans for a major game. The Comrades marathon has a field of about 25 000.

Fordyce explains a weekly team of over 2 000 volunteers organise parkruns across the country.

The event takes place each weekend and, at some venues, on public holidays as well.

Yet, its popularity has not waned; parkrun South Africa boasts about 180 venues and the number keeps growing.

This could all be due to the event’s founding principles:

The parkrun doesn’t cost participants any money; there are no registration fees or licence numbers; it is open to all ages; takes place in a safe environment; runs are always five kilometres long, and they always take place at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning.

In sunny South Africa, and especially in Central South Africa, some runs however have to take place at 7am due to the heat.

In an earlier interview with SAinfo, Fordyce revealed that global founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, one of his seconds in his Comrades glory days in the 1980s, had introduced him to the event.

“I went over to run the London Marathon in 2011 and he invited me to come and run a parkrun at Bushy Park the day before,” Fordyce told the website.

“I did that and immediately thought, what a great concept and said, ‘Paul I’ve got to take it to South Africa’, and he said: ‘That’s why I invited you’.”

Sinton-Hewitt founded the parkrun at the very same park on 2 October 2004.

The Zimbabwean born Potchefstroom High School for Boys organised this first event with three volunteers and 13 runners participated.

Now, parkrun is present in almost two dozen countries.

In 2018, on an average Saturday around a quarter of a million runners take part in 1 500 events spread over 20 countries.

Events take place at a range of general locations including city parks, country parks, national parks, stately homes, castles, forests, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, beaches, promenades, prisons, racecourses and nature reserves.

Runners who have completed the "Milestone" of 50, 100, 250 or 500 separate runs are rewarded with a free T-Shirt, juniors also receive the T-Shirt for completing 10 runs.

Runners can travel to and complete any parkrun, those that travel are termed "tourists" and can complete unofficial challenges such as "Londone", which involves running every event in London.

The male world record holder is Andrew Baddeley, who set a time of 13 minutes and 48 seconds at Bushy Parkrun on 11 August 2012. The female world record holder is Charlotte Arter, who set a time of 15 minutes and 50 seconds at Cardiff Parkrun on 5 January 2019.

If you participated in a parkrun this morning, let us know where and what you love about it on our Facebook page.

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