COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Update: 21 July

We’ve sought, throughout lockdown, to be consistent and transparent in our communications, and feel that having a scheduled update of our most recent position helps that. We also feel it’s important to maintain a routine, and to ensure that our community and external stakeholders can easily access our most up-to-date position.

Further, whilst the lack of confirmed return dates may appear to indicate that little has changed, significant progress is being made behind the scenes around our operational plans and protocols. This will allow us to return in time, and we continue to collaborate with the relevant bodies and agencies in different parkrun territories around the world.

Over the last week particularly, we’ve seen a number of announcements as governments updated their guidance, and numerous sporting and physical activity groups responded accordingly. In some countries we have seen the return of small-scale elite and community sports events, with various additional protocols in place.

Importantly, as an independent charity with a global remit, we do not sit under any governing bodies and are therefore responsible for creating our own guidelines to return and, where required, achieving sign-off from relevant public health authorities. This work continues behind the scenes and we’ll share developments publicly as soon as it is appropriate to do so.

At the same time, we continue to gather insight from parkrunners around their intentions and attitudes about returning to parkrun and, as always, decision-making needs to consider the role played by our wonderful volunteer teams.

Thanks for your continued support.

Tom Williams

Chief Operating Officer

parkrun Global