URUNGA parkrun celebrated its seventh anniversary last Saturday with a “Seven Seas” themed event, complete with bunting, balloons, treats and happy parkrunners, parkwalkers and volunteers.

“We had over 50 participants in our anniversary run with some dressing in the spirit of the theme,” spokesperson Eric Pitman told News Of The Area.

Since its inaugural run on 14 October, 2017, when 91 people participated, the Urunga parkrun course has been completed 12,191 times by 3576 different individuals.

Born in London’s Bushy Park in 2004, parkrun is a free, weekly timed 5km event now in 22 countries.

Participants can run, jog, walk or complete a combination.

Every weekend, people join in one of the more than 2300 parkrun events worldwide.

Fostering a community spirit, participants don’t need to be an elite runner, just someone who wants to be active, social, “and enjoy the best start to the weekend”.

Mr Pitman said that parkrun is proud that its average times are getting slower, not faster.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t go fast or try to get a personal best time.”

Last Saturday, at Urunga parkrun, seven people notched up a personal best time and others are striving to do so at future events.

“In fact, in its seven-year history, there have been 1684 new personal bests set at Urunga parkrun.”

Over one million people worldwide have registered to participate in parkrun.

“You can enhance your participation by collecting an unofficial “challenge”, such as the Alphabeteer (to do a parkrun in different locations starting with each letter of the alphabet), Stopwatch Bingo (collect each of the 60 numbers in the seconds part of your time) or Name Badge (complete a parkrun starting with each letter of your name), and many more.

“There are plenty of apps out there to help you keep track.”

Registration is free and valid at any parkrun in the world.

“You can come a lot, or a little,” Mr Pitman said.

“You can volunteer if you can’t run or walk, or just want to contribute to keeping parkrun going.

“Urunga parkrun needs seven people every week to run the event.

“Over the last seven years, 289 individuals have volunteered, with some of them volunteering over 100 times each,” he said.

Urunga parkrun’s Facebook page features posts about its activities.

By Andrea FERRARI