Original parkrun – how many people used their Garmins?
On the day of that inaugural parkrun, I lived 2 km away and regularly ran in the park, though I didn’t do my first parkrun for another couple of years. The original parkrun itself had 13 finishers, and a modest winning time of 19:15/5k, which elite athletes and Olympic gold medallists significantly lowered over the years.
The race was on November 2nd, 2004, almost 21 years ago. I know some of the people in the photo, and most of them have fared well over the years, probably because they are still staying fit and running.
What intrigued me about this photo, however, was the wrists. Four of the 13 finishers already had their fingers on their Garmins, waiting to start, even back in 2004. I don’t remember that being a thing then…But I guess the evidence speaks for itself.
Which Watches?
These were the days before Garmin had even dreamt of the Forerunner 205 and the breakout 305, so I’m guessing almost all of the watches would have been from the more popular brand at the time: Polar. The Polar s720i was released a few months earlier in August, and I don’t think I got mine until the following year. At the time, I had the s620 predecessor, and a few of those running may have had the same model as me, though it was quite expensive at the time, at about $200. (hmmm!).
That said, early Garmin watches were also available, so these are possibilities shown with their release dates.
- Forerunner 101: March 2, 2003
- Forerunner 201: August 14, 2003
Q: How many people used their Garmins in the inaugural parkrun
A: Probably about one, maybe none.
For comparison, Bushy Park’s parkrun from last weekend had over 1500 finishers, and I would bet there were easily 1,000 Garmins on show.
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🙂 And how many of those 4 forgot to press the stop button as the ran across the finish line?
Oh, I had a 720. Polar was my go to for HR, even after getting the FR310 for GPS. Took a bit before I gave up Polar altogether. I even had the Polar bike computer – can’t remember the model number.
I’ve never done a Park Run. I’m not even aware of any in the US.
so, you’re saying they didn’t have autostop by position in those days 😉
but…yes! probably 2 of them
And no Trim to Finish line feature. Oh, how far we’ve come 🙂
in all seriousness, i think the polar only had one button and that didn’t always work too well!
I could never moan about the size of the metric on display…there was often only one, filling the entire screen
Counter argument: I was faster before all this technology got in the way!