parkrun’s year in numbers

parkrun is – quite literally – on a run! And what a year we just had: 2016 was the biggest year for parkrun USA by all measures, and 2017 aims even higher.

• There were 14033 completed runs in the US, compared to 7281 in 2015, virtually doubling our field. In fact, in 2016 there were nearly as many runs as in all previous years combined since 2012 (14602)!
• This amounted to 1 year, 245 days, 4 hours, 9 min. and 57 sec. of back to back running by 9583 unique individuals.
• Just over half of the growth in runs (53%) has come from the three new parkruns started in the US in 2016, but the other half came from growth in the number of runners in previously existing events. In fact, participation increased in all parkruns, with Crissy Field, CA in the lead, growing from 1275 runs in 2015 to 2881 in 2016! The event with the largest field is Clermont Waterfront, in Florida, with 3974 runs in 2016.
• Doubling registered runners: there are currently 12017 registered parkrunners in the US, up from approximately 6000 a year ago.
• Doubling events: there are 8 parkruns in the US, up from 4 in 2015,  with several others in the works.
• parkrun USA convened 272 events in 2016, up from 189, with 1600 volunteering opportunities filled. How many small all-volunteer nonprofits can claim this type of participation in the US?
• On average, 52 people turned up at any individual parkrun, up from 39 in 2015. The highest turnout was 193 in Clermont, but we still ran even with as few as 9, under horizontal freezing rain.
• These numbers only pale in comparison with parkrun’s own growth around the world: the US  represent only close to 0.2% of all runs, but that picture is rapidly changing. There are new milestones soon to be achieved, including reaching our 30,000th run in the US by the end of January.
• It has been an extraordinary year for parkrun Global, too: the 3 millionth runner signed up for parkrun; more than 200,000 people turned up last Saturday; 10,000 new registrations were made in a single day; there are over 1000 parkrun and junior parkrun events around the world, growing at a rate of 2-5 new parkruns per week!

Globally, parkrun has become the world’s largest community-focused athletics event, and arguably one of the largest volunteer initiatives, mobilizing 13,000 volunteers each Saturday. These numbers exceeded the wildest expectations of the parkrun pioneers, but we’re now preparing for the time in which we’ll see 1 million runners and walkers each Saturday, and we’re sure that a large number of them will be from the US.