On Every Saturday

On every Saturday morning, tens of thousands of Australians come together in hundreds of locations, right across the country, to participate in the extraordinary community-based, volunteer-led phenomenon called parkrun.

From its first Australian event, on the Gold Coast in April 2011, parkrun has grown to over 400 Australian locations and over 990,000 registered participants, inside its first decade. In those first ten years, Australian parkrunners completed an astonishing 9,810,901 parkruns – walking, jogging or running – at an amazing 78,533 events.

Then, on the first Saturday of its second Australian decade, 3 April 2021, another 47,076 people walked, jogged or ran a parkrun, with more than 4000 others participating as volunteers to make these parkruns possible. Despite the interruptions of the 2020 and early 2021 COVID shutdown periods, parkrun in Australia was well and truly back in town.

This book celebrates Australia’s first ten parkrun years. It outlines parkrun’s history, in Australia and across the world; provides examples of Australia’s amazing parkruns and the people who’ve created them; explains how easy it is to become involved; and describes the different forms that involvement can take.

After ten years of parkrun in Australia, it’s easy to forget that it’s still a relatively new phenomenon – that there wasn’t anything like it in Australia just a few short years ago. As Tim Oberg, the person who brought parkrun to Australia, says, that short history means we don’t yet know the long-term impact that parkrun will deliver.

‘When I was growing up,’ Tim says, ‘there wasn’t anywhere you could go for a group five-kilometre Saturday morning run. Now we see whole families coming to walk or run or volunteer. We have babies going round the course in prams who’ll grow up with parkrun as a regular part of their lives. Who can guess at the long-term health benefits that will bring?’

Foreword by Lisa Millar: You are only a first-timer once – 1

1. Introduction: on every Saturday – 5

2. What is parkrun and how did it begin? – 9

3. parkrun in Australia: some facts and figures – 21

4. Stories from Australia’s parkruns – 41
... Queensland – 45
... Victoria – 67
... New South Wales (NSW) – 91
... Australian Capital Territory (ACT) – 115
... Western Australia (WA) – 127
... Tasmania – 149
... South Australia (SA) – 163
... Northern Territory (NT) – 187

5. parkrun’s future – 197

6. An introduction to parkrun-speak – 207

7. How can I get involved? – 213

8. Where can I parkrun overseas? – 227

9. Conclusion: free, for everyone, forever – 235

10. Australia’s parkruns – 239

11. parkrun: a social movement for the common good – 271

Interview list – 285
Photography credits – 288
Thank you – 291