Record attendance for Invercargill parkrun
“I think the type of people we’ve had post-Covid have been quite different. So we are getting quite a different profile, which is really neat.”
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The Invercargill parkrun event has smashed its all-time attendance record a week after celebrating its sixth birthday.
It has largely put a lingering post-Covid hangover to bed.
On Saturday morning 263 people ran, jogged, or walked the 5km Queens Park course at the weekly Invercargill parkrun.
It bettered the previous record of 218 attendees set in February 2020 just before Covid-19 took over.
Saturday’s turnout has organisers confident that the post-Covid challenge of getting people back out and attending is now largely behind them.
The Invercargill parkrun was established on February 10, 2018 by Liz Henry and has been held on most Saturday mornings since.
All 270 events over the past six years have been free for people to attend and run by unpaid volunteers.
The event was halted through the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and Henry conceded there had been a rebuild since its return.
“The biggest thing is when we were told not to go near each other for a period of time, how do you get them to go back?
“We particularly noticed a drop in our over 74 [age] category coming out to play, so to speak. I’m really excited to see the stats for [Saturday] and the attendance for that category has increased as well.”
While Saturday was a record-breaking day for Invercargill parkrun, seven days earlier there was an obvious indication of a surge in popularity for the weekly event.
“We had 188 [people last Saturday] and it was absolutely peeing down. Normally when it is raining that hard, we’d have about 70 or 80.”
Nice weather on Saturday morning helped spark the record attendance, while Henry said there was a more varied group of attendees now which also helped.
“I think the type of people we’ve had post-Covid have been quite different. So we are getting quite a different profile, which is really neat.”
“In addition to our awesome running community, we’ve had a lot more people who just want to get moving and get active and are contributing in a wide variety of ways.
“It’s a free positive event, it’s not a race. It’s about you doing it your way.”
“We are also not having the same issues in regard to getting volunteers because they are excited knowing that volunteering is activity as well.”
The participation spike on Saturday was helped by a taekwondo club showing up “en masse” as part of their fitness programme.
“It shows that parkrun means different things to different people,” Henry said.
On top of all of that, Henry said there were various events coming up - including the Surf to City - and people had used parkrun as preparation for that.
Since Invercargill parkrun started on February 10, 2018 all up 3764 participants have completed 29,889 parkruns covering a total distance of 149,445 km.
A total of 565 individuals have volunteered 4654 times.
When an event has been going on for six years, and is held every Saturday morning, everything would point to it being hard to maintain long-term interest.
But Saturday’s turnout indicated that wasn’t the case, and Henry pointed out the parkrun movement globally is actually having another surge in interest.
“With a growing trend to really celebrate the inclusiveness and showing that parkrun is for everyone we are seeing a lot more worldwide.
“This weekend New Zealand wide we are going to see records at multiple events. Australia last weekend had their biggest attendance ever, for the Australian territory.
“The UK, even though it’s winter, are getting some really strong numbers. We are definitely seeing a global trend which is awesome to see.”
The Invercargill parkrun starts at 8am each Saturday morning at the Feldwick Gates at Queens Park. There is also a Gore parkrun at Hamilton Park and at a Lake2Lake parkrun in Te Anau.