parkrun, which started as a small, informal 5K run with just 13 participants in Bushy Park, London, in 2004, has grown into a global phenomenon with over 10 million runners and 2600 parkruns. Its founder, South African born, Paul Sinton-Hewitt grew up in Potchefstroom. From only 26 runners and 3 volunteers at the first run, parkrun has flourished, particularly in South Africa, where more than a million of its members are based. Bruce Fordyce, the legendary South African ultra-marathon runner, is one of the key figures behind parkrun’s success. In an interview with BizNews, Fordyce shared that he plans to participate in his 549th parkrun this weekend, despite having recently undergone knee replacement surgery. parkrun started he says that South Africans are drawn to the 5-kilometer parkrun due to its safety, the majority of runners are women. Fordyce says participants enjoy adding new runs to their totals, which he describes as “stamp collecting on steroids,” as they try to add more destinations to their list.
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Highlights from the interview
In an interview with BizNews, Bruce Fordyce, the legendary South African ultra-marathoner, discusses his involvement with parkrun, a global community-based 5k event that encourages participants of all abilities to walk, jog, or volunteer. Fordyce explains that parkrun started in 2004 with just 13 participants in Bushy Park, London, and has grown into a global movement with over 10 million members. He notes that South Africa is a key participant, with over a million members, making up a significant portion of the global parkrun community.
Fordyce, who has participated in 548 parkruns, emphasizes the inclusive and supportive nature of the event, highlighting that anyone, regardless of fitness level or speed, is welcome. He shares his personal experience, mentioning his knee replacement surgery and how he returned to parkrun as a walker before gradually running again. He also mentions the safety and community aspects of parkrun, which make it especially appealing to women.
The conversation touches on parkrun’s non-profit model, with no entry fees or prize money, and the role of volunteers who help organise the events. Fordyce explains the addictive nature of parkrun, with participants striving to improve their times or complete different events around the world, akin to a global “stamp-collecting” hobby. He encourages listeners to join parkrun, noting that it’s a welcoming environment for everyone and an enjoyable way to stay active. The interview concludes with Fordyce inviting people to join the movement, regardless of whether they walk or run.
Extended transcript of the interview
Linda van Tilburg (00:10.425)
I am Linda van Tilburg for Biz News. parkrun began as a small informal 5k run with just 13 participants in Bushy Park in London in 2004 and it has grown into a global movement with more than 10 million runners. Its founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, grew up in South Africa, as Bruce just told me, he’s a boytjie from POTCH. But more than a million of its members are now in South Africa. Bruce Fordyce, the legendary South African ultra marathon runner, is one of the key people who makes parkrun happen, and he is joining us on Biznews. Hi Bruce, thanks so much for joining us.
Bruce Fordyce (00:48.086)
Hi Linda, wonderful to chat to you.
Linda van Tilburg (00:50.58)
5Ks, I’m sure for you that’s just a warm-up.
Bruce Fordyce (00:57.075)
Nowadays, and now that I have an impending sense of mortality and I’m getting old and I’ve had a knee replacement operation, actually 5Ks is a nice distance. I really enjoy it. It depends, you can make 5Ks as challenging as you want. If you go flat out from the word, go, 5Ks can hurt. But it’s not quite the same as 90 kms.
Linda van Tilburg (01:22.327)
So, may I ask how long do you take for a 5k?
Bruce Fordyce (01:24.555)
Nowadays I’m probably about 30 minutes or so, or if I’m lucky I can break 30. But yes, I used to be a lot quicker than that. I just love taking part in a 5k parkrun.
Linda van Tilburg (01:49.012)
So, what would you say to somebody who says, no, I’ve got a gammy knee, I can’t run.
Bruce Fordyce (01:54.422)
Well, Linda, I had a knee replacement operation three months ago and I started walking again at parkrun, because you can walk at parkrun, and we should call it parkwalk because we welcome walkers, and I took over an hour and I’ve slowly got better from my knee operation has healed and it’s done beautifully and I’m thrilled with it. Now I’m running, I’m back running the whole way and I’m really enjoying it. and I think I should emphasise with parkrun that we call it parkrun, it really should be called parkrun, walk, jog or even volunteer because we have a lot of people who volunteer at parkrun.
They don’t do the 5Ks, but they love to be part of it and they come along and they do the timing or the scanning of the barcodes, whatever it may be, because you print a little barcode and it’s a whole community thing. You are welcome no matter what your speed and you can never be last, because we have a person who goes at the back called the tail walker. Their primary role is to ensure that everybody’s safe and no one’s fallen over and twisted their ankle or something. But secondly, they make sure you can never be last, because they finish last.
Linda van Tilburg (03:09.877)
So, do you think that’s a good way for people who say that running can’t be safe in South Africa to join big group, join parkrun.
Bruce Fordyce (03:18.014)
We find that people come to us, a lot of people come to us because Parkrun is so safe. In fact, the one statistic that we’re very proud of is that we have more women at parkrun than we do have men. I think it’s because women feel safe, protected, and they can just get on with enjoying their exercise and they don’t have to worry about what’s going on around them because there’s so many people.
Linda van Tilburg (03:40.856)
I’ve got a daughter who’s a runner and she said that she sometimes feels a bit unsafe. So, should suggest to her that she should join parkrun.
Bruce Fordyce (03:47.808)
Yes. She must definitely join Parkrun. She will be so welcome and lI need to warn her, it’s incredibly addictive. Once you’ve run a parkrun, you’re in a lot of trouble because you just can’t wait for your next Saturday morning parkrun. And again, to use myself as an example, on Saturday I will run my 548th parkrun and I am not even close to the greatest number of parkruns. So, people are very, very addicted to their Saturday morning run or walk or volunteer.
Linda van Tilburg (04:33.028)
There’s probably also the social aspect of it.
Bruce Fordyce (04:35.986)
There’s a huge community aspect to it. It sounds corny, but if I had to use an adjective to describe parkrun, it would be happy. People on a Saturday morning are happy to see each other. We’ve got another lovely lady. I here’s a good example. Thea Taljaard, she runs Sunrise-on Sea parkrun in East London and she’s done close to 600. And she’s done all of them at Sunrise on Sea. When you say to her, there’s five or six other park runs within range of you in the general East London area, why don’t you try them? She says, no, because those are not my people and no one will hug me and I think that sums it up.
Linda van Tilburg (05:18.342)
Well, parkrun passed the million-member mark in South Africa and that is a tenth of the worldwide members. So, what is so appealing about parkrun?
Bruce Fordyce (05:28.8)
Well, it’s a unique million because it’s a million individual people. The millionth person crossed a line somewhere in a parkrun or volunteered at a South African parkrun. And when I look back, our first one was November 2011. So, we’re 13 years old. We’re a naughty teenager now. But when I look back at that, 26 people came and there were three volunteers. So, if you had told me then that one day there’d be a million, I would have said, you’re absolutely out of your mind. We’re just happy if this grows a little bit up to maybe 100 people, that will be wonderful. And now, we’re a million. We have another saying which is quite arrogant, and we don’t mean it to be arrogant, but it is to motivate ourselves. We always say on every single day, we will never be this small again because as we’re speaking, new people are registering for Parkrun. So, our numbers are getting bigger and bigger every day that goes past. We will never be this small again and so we’ve got heads down. Let’s go for the two million.
Linda van Tilburg (06:44.795)
So, is this all volunteering or non-profit? There’s no money to be made here.
Bruce Fordyce (06:48.29)
No, there’s no prize money, it’s free to take part, it’s all done with wonderful volunteers and all we ask you to do is register. Print your little barcode and it’s a little piece of paper the size of a credit card or you can do what I’ve done. I’ve got to show off – this wrist band and it has a barcode number on it, which is your unique passport to every single parkrun in the world. So, my little barcode works at any parkrun in the world and my number is 136,000 862 which is quite a big number but if you think now if you join parkrun, your number will be 10 million and something.
So, that’s how much we’ve grown. Globally, we’ve grown that much and that’s all we ask you to do, and just bring that along with you, your little barcode, bring it with you. Then you take part, and when you finish, it gets scanned. then you get all your results, a couple of hours later, or maybe a day later, you get your result back. says, well done, Linda. You did such and such a run. It’s your personal best time, well done and it’s your 10th park run, whatever it will say and you did this well in your age group.
So, that’s the addictive part because then people say, whoa. The addiction I think is that you can do a park run however you like, as I explained. I don’t like talking about myself, but I had this knee operation. So, for a while, I just walked with a tail walker at the back. It’s the only place where I could go where no one’s going to laugh at me. I can be as slow as I like and I’ll go with the tail walker. But then once you start getting better, you can get more and more competitive. So, I’ll give an example.
I ran Mashishing parkrun a while ago and I had crossed with a woman and she punched the air as she crossed the line, I said, why are you so happy? She said because I broke an hour for the first time, Now an hour is not going to give anybody in Nairobi a sleepless night, butut for her it was fast and you could see how
She was thrilled she was that she’d broken an hour and then a few minutes later she came up to me and said, I’m giving myself three months to break 45. So, you can see already how the addiction is growing and how it grows with all of us. Then there’s another group called the tourists who travel around doing a different park run. Every weekend they do a different one. s
So, in South Africa we’ve got about 220 parkruns, plus minus. In the world we’ve got about 2,500- 2,600 parkruns. So, you can never do them all. But let’s say you were trying to do all the South African ones. It’s a little bit like…the only way I can sort of sum it up, it’s a little bit like stamp collecting on steroids. You’ve done all of them, but you haven’t done the Clanwilliam parkrun. So, there’s this gap in your collection. No matter what it takes, you’ll get yourself there. And it is so addictive that it is ridiculous. So, I’ve got dear, friends. We’re going in January, we’re to take two days to drive via Uppington and Augrabies Falls to Port Nolloth parkrun, which is far from Johannesburg. It will take us two days to get there and two days to get back. That’s just for a 5k, but then we would be able to tick Port Nolloth off our list. Done.
So that’s the kind of addiction that you can get and there are people who collect the flags of the world. There’s a whole lot of little challenges. Who’s done the most around the world? And that’s a major challenge, because there’s park runs from New Zealand to Canada, all over Europe. There’s some tricky parkruns to get. You can try and get to the Falkland Isles and do the Falkland Isles parkrun. They’ve actually made it part of Britain, but still, Falkland Isles is a park run. More and more countries gradually joining and getting bigger and bigger. That’s how far away some of the park runs are. The one that is the furthest north is in Finland and the furthest south is down in New Zealand somewhere. There’ll be a park around there.
Linda Van Tilburg (11:31.836)
Well, you’ve really inspired me. I will drag myself off the couch do a park run. Thanks so much, Bruce Fordyce.
Bruce Fordyce (11:38.154)
And remember you can walk. Remember you can walk, Linda. So, enjoy it!
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