My parents’ big double parkrun milestone

My dad, who is 79, recently reached his 250^th parkrun milestone and my mum, who is 76, reached her 100^th parkrun milestone on the same day.

Earlier this year, they noticed that my dad was on 220 parkruns and my mum was on 70, so they decided they wanted to reach their milestones on the same day. My dad ended up doing a few weeks of volunteering after his 249^th parkrun, while my mum caught up.

My parents did their first parkrun in August 2016 – starting at the same time as my sister and brother-in-law, and over a year after I started parkrun with my family.

My dad did five parkruns in 2016 and my mum did four. My dad made a new year’s resolution to do 20 parkruns in 2017 and actually did 29. Then he just kept going. From then onwards, he turned up to parkrun most weeks. He has always alternated a walking and jogging technique to get round the course.

My dad reached his 100 parkrun milestone in August 2019. When parkrun stopped for lockdown in March 2020, he’d done 125 parkruns. His PB before lockdown was 36:41, which he achieved in 2020.

After 2016, my mum didn’t go back again until 2019, when she did three parkruns. When parkrun stopped for lockdown, she’d done just seven parkruns.

Sadly, my dad caught Covid in November 2020 and spent Christmas in hospital. He was put on a ventilator, and we were told to prepare for the worst. He pulled through – and he credited parkrun for helping. Parkrun meant he was fitter than the average 75-year-old. But it also helped save his life because he told the people treating him about it. It helped them see him as more than a frail old man who couldn’t get out of bed. They fought to save him and he fought to save himself.

Remarkably, my dad made a full recovery with no long Covid. But he would never get back to a sub-40 parkrun. His best time since Covid was 43:02 in 2023.

As a family, we all really missed parkrun during lockdown and were all very happy to go back in July 2021. On the second week, I was surprised when my mum joined us.

My mum has been a very regular parkrunner since lockdown. Although a period of ill health meant she was stuck on 49 parkruns for six months.

My mum does parkrun as a brisk walk. Her PB is 47:32, which she got in 2016, and her fastest time this year is 48:05. I’ve walked it with her a few times and it’s hard to keep up! She can often be seen walking with her 11-year-old granddaughter, who is close to her own 100^th parkrun and towers over her grandma.

Parkrun is a really big thing for our family. Usually it’s myself and my husband, my parents, my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. Occasionally my own grown up kids might make an appearance too.

My husband and I have also reached our 250^th parkrun, my sister, brother-in-law and nephew have reached their 100^th. In addition, my daughter – who was the person who got us started in 2015 when she was 9 – has reached 100 and my younger son has reached his 50 milestone.

Thank you to the core teams and all the volunteers who make parkrun happen every week. Our family really appreciate everything you do.