Bushy parkrun

Bushy parkrun (formerly Bushy Park Time Trial) is a 5 km run that takes place every Saturday morning at 9am in Bushy Park, Teddington. It has taken place every week since October 2004. It is entirely run by volunteers, and is free to enter.

Contents 1 History 2 List of famous people who have done the Bushy parkrun 3 Points Prize Winners 4 Trivia 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

History

The event started on 2 October 2004 with just 13 runners taking part in the inaugural event. The record number of runners completing the course was 806 people, set on 3 October 2009, the fifth anniversary event. The course record for men was set by the Commonwealth Games silver medalist, Craig Mottram in a time of exactly 14 minutes (10 June 2006). Gladys Chemweno (16:11 on 8 May 2010) beat Katrina Wootton women's record of 16 minutes 20 seconds (1 January 2009). This performance beat parkrun's longest standing record: Olympic Games silver medallist, Sonia O'Sullivan had previously held the record since 18 June 2005.

The organisers of Bushy parkrun went on to form parkrun (originally UKTT), an umbrella organisation that supports similar events around the UK (as well as five in Denmark, a couple in Australia and formerly one in Zimbabwe). The event changed its name from Bushy Park Time Trial in October 2008.

Bushy parkrun is highly rated by the runners who have taken part in it, with a 96% overall rating and 98% reporting that they would take part again, in the Runners World running event survey.^[1] The event is reported on a weekly basis by the local press,^[2] and the parkrun phenomenon is gaining national exposure.^[3]

As of April 2010, you must pre-register on the parkrun website AND bring your barcode with you to get a recorded time for the event. No barcode = no time.

List of famous people who have done the Bushy parkrun

• Craig Mottram, Australian 5000 m runner
• Sonia O'Sullivan, Irish Olympic silver medallist
• Gladys Chemweno, Kenyan International runner
• Andrew Baddeley, British Olympic 2008 1500m runner
• Jodie Swallow, British triathlete
• Richard Stannard, British triathlete
• Jonny Searle, British Olympic rowing gold medallist
• Martin Cross, British Olympic rowing gold medallist
• Collins Kosgei, Kenyan athlete
• Dennis Ndiso, Kenyan athlete
• Richard Dunwoody, jockey who has won the Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup
• Mohammed Farah, World 5000m Champion
• Mike Trees, World Masters 10,000m Champion, British Triathelte & Duathlete

Points Prize Winners

Season	Men's Points Prize John Hanscomb Trophy	Women's Points Prize Sonia O'Sullivan Trophy
2004/2005	Darren Wood	Gill Wilson
2005/2006	Shane McDermott	Nicola Whitby
2006/2007	Tom Morgan	Liz Souness
2007/2008	Mike Anderson	Polly Adams
2008/2009	Tom Morgan	Simone Rapa
2009/2010	Mark Gratton	Simone Rapa
2010/2011	Danny Norman	Simone Rapa

Trivia

• It has become famous locally for the events on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. At the 2007 New Year's Day event, Shane McDermott won the race despite wearing the clothes that he wore at the previous night's New Year celebration party.

• In April 2007 it was awarded the title 'Best UK small event' at the inaugural Runner's Personal Best awards organised by the UK edition of Runner's World magazine.

As of 30 December 2011[1]:

• There have been 389 runnings of Bushy parkrun.
• 16,044 people have run the event.
• They have run it a total of 144,029 times.
• People from 508 different clubs have run it.
• 181 runners have completed more than 100 Bushy parkruns, including:
  • John Hanscomb, after whom the men's points competition trophy is named and who has completed 297 Bushy parkruns.
  • Darren Wood, who was the first member of the 250 club and has completed 252.
  • Richard Fletcher (275).
  • Paul Killick (255).

See also

• parkrun
• Bushy Park

References

External links

• The official Bushy parkrun website
• The website for parkrun, who support all events
• The Royal Parks - Bushy Park