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This month’s newsletter is packed with stories about new parkruns and how they got started. Event Directors from Eagan, Mansfield and College Park share their personal accounts, little secrets, stories of support, near disasters, and more. And we also focus on one of the important elements of every event, the Run Report – just as parkrun releases its first ever annual review, and aptly names it the 2016 Run Report.
Speaking of new parkruns in the US, things are really taking off here: Three parkruns will start in the month of June: Deep Run parkrun starts in Richmond, Virginia on June 3rd. Heritage Harbor Ottawa in Illinois and Leakin Park, in Baltimore, Maryland start later in the month. Further up north, parkrun Canada started in Whitby, Ontario in April and is geared up to start Beach Strip parkrun in Hamilton, Ontario on May 6th. Those two are pretty close to the border, if you’re looking for an excuse for tourism. At that takes the total of parkruns in North America to 18!
We ran past some impressive milestones in April: the launch of Eagan parkrun, in Minnesota, the 4th birthday of Clermont Waterfront parkrun, the 1000th unique runner at Fletcher’s Cove, the first time we’ve had over 2000 runs in a month across the US, Rory Murphy’s 200th run (plus volunteering 222 times!), and the 2nd full year of back-to-back running (i.e. total hours run by all runners in all events) at parkrun USA – this is a big one: it took us four years to reach our “first year of running”, and just about a year for the second! parkrun Global reached a most impressive milestone: one million runs in a month!
Last but certainly not least, parkrun USA and Livonia parkrun celebrate their 5th anniversary on June 3rd. None other than parkrun Founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt will be joining us for the celebration. Details will be forthcoming, but Paul will be joining us on this day for the inaugural Deep Run parkrun, in Richmond, VA., and will also run College Park parkrun on the previous Saturday, May 27th.
All around the world, we’ve seen over 28,000 unique volunteers in the parkwalker role and they’ve parkwalked over 52,000 times! We speak to one of the parkwalkers, Cathy Hannon, about why she chooses to volunteer in her favourite role every Saturday morning. Cathy’s chronic condition means that parkwalking is the best option for her, she relishes the…
All of the talk around the barbecue during Memorial Day weekend had to do with our huge record breaking weekend at parkrun USA. We welcomed 3,204 runners and walkers to 61 different events from Biddeford to Bainbridge Island. Whether it was your 1st or 101st parkrun, we hope to see you back throughout the summer….
