Bushy parkrun

Bushy parkrun logo

Bushy parkrun (formerly Bushy Park Time Trial) is a 5K 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.

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 is 1051 people. The course record for men of 13m48s was set on 11 August 2012 and is held by Andrew Baddeley, the previous record of exactly 14 mins was held by Australian Craig Mottram. The women's record of 15m58s was set on 22 October 2011 by Justina Heslop. Previous record holder was Gladys Chemweno (16:11 on 8 May 2010) who 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 over 150 events around the UK (as well as 8 in Denmark, 32 in Australia, 4 in Poland, 2 in New Zealand, 6 in South Africa, 1 in the USA, 1 at Camp Bastion Afghanistan 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, runners must pre-register on the parkrun website and bring their barcode with them to get a recorded time for the event.

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 & 2011 ITU World Aquathlon Champion
• 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, Olympic 5000m Gold Medalist, Olympic 10000m Gold Medalist
• Mike Trees, World Masters 10,000m Champion, 2012 World age group Sprint Triathlon Champion, 2012 World age group Aquathlon Champion

Points Prize Winners

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 :

• 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

Coordinates: 51°24′42″N 0°19′56″W / 51.41167°N 0.33222°W / 51.41167; -0.33222