Tags: Octogenarians
The annual Octogenarian get-together will return for its fifth stint at London’s Bushy Park on Saturday 2 July.
parkrunning Octogenarian George Frogley tells us why age is no barrier to parkrun, and invites all likeminded parkrunners to join the fun.
We’d like to invite like-minded parkrunners over the age of 80, all youthful octogenarians and nonagenarians, to the fifth event of our now annual gathering. What we’d really love is to get 100 octogenarians parkrunning together.
At our first event in 2017 we had 18 finishers, in 2018 it was 38, in 2019 it was 48, in 2020 we had a brief pause during the covid-19 pandemic, and in 2021 we had 42 finishers.
Age is no barrier to parkrun, and with a probable combined age of over 4,000 years, and hundreds of parkrun between them, the octogenerians still love walking, jogging, running and volunteering with friends.
Everyone who takes part with us always does fantastically well, and there are always outstanding performances by both men and women defying their age.
At the last event, there were some age-defying achievements, with records broken and smiles aplenty. The fun was felt much further than Bushy Park, with octogenarians joining in from as far north as Silksworth, right down to Bognor Regis on the south coast.
Over at Brundall parkrun in Norfolk, Marie Palmer has been a much-loved member of the parkrun community since 2015. Now a proud nonagenarian, she holds the course record for two age categories and completed her 100th parkrun last month at the age of 92!
We are already counting down the days until our 2022 event, and we really would love to welcome any other youngsters like us to take part. We meet at the east end of the car park, and all you need is your barcode!
Whether it’s walking, jogging, running, volunteering or spectating, age is no barrier at parkrun and we can’t wait to see you at an event soon. You can sign up to join the parkrun community here, and find your nearest event over here.
George Frogley
#loveparkrun
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