Octogenarian parkrun at Bushy Park

On 5th July, I took my dad to Bushy Park, where parkrun started more than 20 years ago, for the annual octogenarian parkrun. Octogenarian parkrun started in 2017 and I first heard about it two or three years ago. I was determined that I would take my dad, a very keen parkrunner, when he turned 80.

I couldn’t find much information about it online, other than the date. I’d also seen a photo of a big group of octogenarians and nonogenarians wearing 80+ and 90+ numbers.

We stayed over at Teddington Travelodge the night before. My mum (who is 76) came along too and was hoping to run, but she didn’t feel 100% on the morning. She still went along to watch and enjoy the atmosphere. The Travelodge is within walking distance of Bushy Park, but we took a taxi there because I wasn’t sure how far it would be for my parents to walk there and back, on top of running a 5k. There is a car park at Bushy Park, but parkrunners are strongly advised not to use it. Needless to say, cars were pouring into the car park when we arrived, so we could have saved ourselves the cost of a very expensive taxi.

I’ve run Bushy parkrun once before, but stayed on the other side of the park in Kingston. I knew the parkrun started close to the Diana Fountain, so we asked the taxi to take us there. In reality, he couldn’t drive very far into the park, so we still had quite a walk to the start line. Luckily we’d set off at 8am, as I thought we would need lots of time to get our bearings and get organised.

I remembered the meeting area clearly from when I ran it before – with a playground and a toilet block. We walked there and I saw a couple of people with 80+ numbers on. I asked where they’d got them from. Near the car park! This was at least 200m back from the way we’d come.  So we walked over for my dad to get his number (a big sticker). We took the essential photos by the purple sign and I went to the toilet. The queue was quite big, but there were eight cubicles, so it moved quickly.

The first timers’ briefing was huge. Bushy Park is a big parkrun tourist attraction at all times anyway. There was a lady doing British Sign Language to accompany the man talking and another man holding up a map of the park. The course is a single lap, which is almost a figure of eight. Most importantly, they explained the triple finish funnel.

I wasn’t going to run with my dad. I can’t resist the opportunity to run fast. My parents know that and respect it. So I lined up near the front of the very wide start line and he lined up near the back. As I was lining up, I heard a man with an 80+ number saying he was hoping to run it in 24 minutes!

 

Bushy parkrun heads off in a straight line in one direction for over a kilometre. It starts on the grass, then moves onto a ‘hoggin’ path – basically a semi-finished path with a  lot of gravel on it. The sound of the hoggin path with hundreds of people running on it is deafening.

There is some grass, some more hoggin and some tarmac. The park is absolutely beautiful and it is a joy to be running with so many people. Even though there was 1667 people running, it didn’t actually feel crowded. At no point did I feel I didn’t have enough room. I overtook a lot of people and was happy with my pace. My previous Bushy parkrun time was 23:15 – set just weeks before I joined the running club – and my aim was to beat that.

There were lots of marshals on the course to point people in the right direction. In fact, there were 81 volunteers in total, all of them doing a fantastic job. Thank you to all of them!

I kept running and could see crowds of people. The end was in sight. I crossed the finish line in 22:24. I was 16th lady, which I was very happy with, and second in my age category.

The triple finish funnel works seamlessly, but seems incredible to someone who isn’t used to it. I was channelled into the middle funnel. Shortly after I finished, they started using the funnel to the right of me. Those people were then stopped at the end of the funnel, while they processed everyone in my funnel.

Just after I’d received my finish token, I saw the over 80 man who’d hoped to run it in 24 minutes. He’d achieve his aim. Incredible!

The finish line is about 200m from the start line. I went to sit with my mum briefly near the start line, then we walked back to the finish line to see my dad. He surprised us by finishing a couple of minutes faster than he does at home. But Bushy parkrun is completely flat, unlike our home parkrun.

People were still pouring across the finish line while my dad was in the finish funnel – lots of over 80s, but lots of other people too.

I spotted a couple of over 80s with medals. I asked a volunteer where they came from. He didn’t know and sent me to someone else. She said to go back to the over 80s meeting point (where we’d picked up the number before the run).

At the meeting point, there was a lovely gathering of very happy over 80s. They were offered alcohol free prosecco (my dad didn’t bother) and cakes with 80+ on them. They also got a medal, which was especially designed for the event. What a lovely thing to do! My dad has never had a medal before and he was delighted with it. Rightly so.

I was hoping my dad would be a part of the big group photo, but they were taking that after parkrun. There were still quite a few people to finish and he didn’t want to wait. There were over 100 ocotogenarians and nonogenarians taking part in 2025 – compared to just 15 in 2017 and 71 in 2024. Apparently on a normal week at Bushy Park there are usually eight to 12 octogenarians taking part.

The over 80s parkrun at Bushy Park is a lovely event and I would absolutely recommend it to any over 80s who do parkrun.

Checklist

Because I couldn’t find much information about it online, I thought it would be useful to share a checklist of the essential information for octogenarian parkrun:

• 80+ and 90+ numbers are handed out at the 80+ meeting point close to the car park and cafe before the run
• The start line is close to the Diana Fountain, the playground and the toilets
• The finish line is about 200m away from the start line
• There are medals, drinks and cakes afterwards back at the 80+ meeting point
• The group photo of over 80s is taken after the event has finished