Read All About It: The Run Report!

parkrun takes place every Saturday morning, in most places at 9 am, and by 10 there will usually be no trace of the wonderful event that just happened, except, perhaps, for a group of enthusiastic runners gathered in a local café. In the next couple of hours, results will be posted, photos shared on social media, life quickly settles on its normal course, and the countdown starts for the next parkrunday. At some point, perhaps later in the week, the Run Report pops up, bringing back memories of the last run.

The Run Reports have been an integral part of the parkrun experience from day one. Paul Sinton-Hewitt, parkrun founder, wrote up a press note for the initial Bushy Park Time Trial, in 2004, and sent it to the newspapers expecting them to pick up the story (they didn’t). Run Reports come in all shapes and styles, allowing artistic freedom for Run Directors: from factual accounts of the results (first finishers, first timers, age-grade records…) to journalistic narratives of epic combats in the course, to moving accounts of personal milestones. Prose and verse, formal or outlandish, Run Reports are always fun to read!

Don’t miss out on your local event Run Report! You might also want to try your hand at helping your Event Team create those Reports. A recent sampling of Run Reports feature an account of the first parkrun in Eagan, Mn, data points on the emerging rivalry between Mansfield and Livonia parkruns (Ohio and Michigan go a long way…), a celebration of Rory Murphy’s 200^th parkrun, and confirmation of rumors of an Olympian showing up at Fletcher’s Cove.

parkrun UK, the nonprofit organization behind the spread of parkrun around the world, just published its first ever annual review. Not surprisingly, this is no ordinary corporate annual report: they aptly named it the Run Report. Good reading!