Parkrun 1000 – It broke the system

I vaguely know a couple of the 13 original Event 1 runners of parkrun, which started in Bushy Park on 2nd October 2004. It’s hard to believe that 999 events and almost 20 years later, last Saturday saw event number 1000.

Bushy Park parkrun: Event 1000 Results

The staggering statistic for the day is that there were 6204 finishers which is by far a global parkrun finisher record, beating the previous record by several thousands.

Saturday’s massive turnout at @bushyparkrun was almost two and a half times as big as the previous record.

Only six parkrun countries (including the UK) have ever had a higher overall attendance nationally. pic.twitter.com/8ta6YeADZg

— Charlie Pearce (@charlie_pearce) September 3, 2024

The 1000th official finisher was Anna CARBERRY in a time of 23:49. For those of you trying to run a Sub-20 5k for the first time this year, it’s a sobering thought that 350 people were sub-20 finishers and that number is probably more than the weekly attendance of most parkruns!

How the system ‘Broke’

Event organisers expected about 6,000 finishers and had 128 volunteers on hand but the sheer number of people filled the entire start area as you can see in the image at the top.  For those who know the course, space was also limited on many of the relatively narrow paths.

However, it was at the end that it became tricky for the finishers to get into the funnel and hence secure a time.

Normally results are out before lunch on Saturday but they have only just been published (Tuesday, 3 days later). Presumably, a lot more checking than normal was needed! I was worried that there might not have been enough barcodes as I heard that over 5000 had turned up.

All’s well that ends well. Great job everyone.

Were you there?