If something is outdoors, has variety, can be tracked and has challenges, it’s a fair bet that I’ll get obsessed with it. parkun ticks all of those boxes and it’s been an obsession of mine since 2012. A friend who had got the parkrun bug a few years before took me to a Boxing Day Freedom Run in December 2012. I was hooked straight away and returned to Black Park to do my first official one the following week. I started touring early, heading over to Wycombe Rye only a few weeks later. As it happened the event was called off due to ice but we did a Freedom Run anyway and returned the following week to do it properly.
Since then I’ve been touring as much as possible, collecting challenges and counties along the way. Here’s a selection of my blog posts on parkrun. Comment below or contact me if you spot any errors and I’ll donate £1 to the parkrun for each correction made.
parkrun Regionnaires
Click on the thumbnails to see parkrun stats, maps and course profiles per county in each region. Some region pages are in development and will be published soon.
parkrun Challenges & general geekery
parkrun Timeline
My completion timeline for the various parkrun clubs, challenges, countries and counties.
Green achievement badges sourced from the Running Challenges extension
parkrun Challenge names and descriptions
Here are the names and descriptions of the parkrun Challenges. Many are the same between the official parkrun app and the Running Challenges app although some of the names are different between the 2 apps.
| parkrun Official | Running Challenges | Description |
|---|---|---|
| All Weather Runner | Run in each month of the year. | |
| Alphabeteer | Alphabeteer | Attend a parkrun starting with every leter of the alphabet (except x) |
| Christmas Day | Christmas Day | Complete a parkrun on 25 December |
| Compass Club | Compass Club | Attend a parkrun who name contains each of the four compass points (north, east, south, west) |
| Daily | Attend a parkrun on every day of the week | |
| Date Bingo | Attend a parkrun on every day of the year | |
| Double-Ton | Double-Ton | Attend 200 parkruns at the same location |
| Explorer 100 | Cowell Club | Attend 100 different parkrun locations |
| Explorer 250 | Freyne Club | Attend 250 different parkrun locations |
| Festive Double | Attend a parkrun on Christmas Day and New Year's Day in the same season (e.g. 25/12/21 & 01/01/22) | |
| Groundhog Day | Groundhog Day | Finish with the same time at the same location on two consecutive parkruns |
| Jetsetter | Attend a parkrun in 5 different countries | |
| Match | Match a parkrun event number to either your volunteer or finish total (e.g. 100th volunteer credit at even number 100) | |
| Monthly | Attend a parkrun in every month of the year | |
| Namely | Name Badge | Attend a parkrun starting with every letter of your name |
| NYD Double | Run two parkruns on one New Year’s Day. | |
| Old MacDonald | Attend a parkrun starting with every letter mentioned in the Old MacDonald song | |
| Palindrome | Finish with a palindrome time (e.g. 32:32) | |
| parkrun | Attend a parkrun starting with every letter of the word parkrun | |
| parkrun Obsessive | Attend 30,40 or 50 or more parkruns in one calendar year | |
| Pirates | Pirates! | Attend severn parkruns beginning with C and one beginning with R (sailing the seven seas and an arghhhhh) |
| Position Bingo | Get all finish positions from 00-99 (e.g 112 counts as 12) | |
| Record Breaker | Run all the parkrun events within 33km, 45km, and 78km of your average parkrun location. | |
| Single-Ton | Single-Ton | Attend 100 parkruns at the same location |
| Snakes | Attend ten parkruns beginning with the letter S | |
| Staying Alive | Stayin’ Alive | Attend three parkruns beinning with B and three begining with G (three Bees and three Gees) |
| Stopwatch Bingo | Stopwatch Bingo | Get all of the seconds from 00 to 59 in your parkrun finish time |
| The Full Ponty | The Full Ponty | Attend all parkruns containing ponty or ponte |
| Tourist | Tourist | Attend 20 different parkrun locations |
| Tourist Streak | Attend 5 different parkrun locations in a row | |
| Voluntary | Volunteer 20 times | |
| Volunteer of All Trades | Volunteer in ten different volunteer roles | |
| Volunteer Ratio | Maintain a volunteer ration of 10% or more | |
| Volunteer Tourist | Volunteer at ten different parkrun locations | |
| We Were Here | Previously attend a parkrun that no longer exists or is not open to the public | |
| Where It All Started | Bushy Pilgrimage | Attend Bushy parkrun, where parkrun began in 2004 |
| World Tourist | Attend a parkrun in every country |