Dozen parkruns in city with 13th along soon

Meanwhile, on January 7 the city’s fourth junior parkrun will start at Norfolk Heritage Park (for 4 -14-years olds).

So that’ll be 12 weekly runs, 5 kilometres for adults on Saturdays at Concord, Endcliffe, Graves, Hillsborough, Manor Fields, Millhouses Park, Parkwood Springs and Rother Valley, and 2k runs for kids on Sundays at Graves, Hillsborough, Norfolk and the Olympic Legacy Park.

And if that’s not enough, the mayor of South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard, has just launched his South Yorkshire Mayor’s parkrun challenge, where he’ll do a 5k run at all of South Yorkshire’s parkruns, accompanied by his active travel commissioner Ed Clancy - that’s 12 in total, or maybe 13 if a snappily named Parkwood parkrun starts within the next few months. (So far there are six in Sheffield, two in Rotherham, one in Barnsley, one in Penistone, and two in Doncaster).

The 12 (or 13) parkruns of the South Yorkshire parkrun challenge began at Endcliffe on Saturday 18th November, and organisers say the public will win a special tee shirt by completing any six of South Yorkshire’s parkuns.

South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard and his active travel commissioner, Olympian Ed Clancy, will run all of them as part of the South Yorkshire Year of Active Travel, and say the public are welcome to join them and active travel programme director Nicola Marshall in the local cafes after the runs for a chat about the year’s aims of promoting more walking, cycling, running and wheeling around the county.

Oliver Coppard has been parkrunning regularly for several years, and he and his active travel team want to promote volunteering at parkruns, just as much as running. Apart from usually getting a nice walk in the park when they opt to help out, the parkrun volunteers gain measurable health and mental health benefits too. The challenge will be part of the South Yorkshire Year of Active Travel, which is one of the mayor’s initiatives in his aim to make South Yorkshire the healthiest region in the country.

Professor Steve Haake has been a Sheffield parkrunner (and parkrun volunteer) for 13 years, and now heads the national parkrun research board. Recent national research agrees with his own findings that simply being outside improves health and mental health, partly as it makes people less stressed and more relaxed. Even the colour green in an outdoor setting makes a difference, he says, as our eyes find green environments easier to watch. But one of the key benefits of parkrun is it makes people feel part of a community. Steve often describes parkrun as a community event with a 5k or 2k run in the middle of it.

“The first thing people say on our surveys is they get an amazing sense of achievement from taking part, and the next thing, from over 70% of participants, is that their mental and physical health has improved since they first started coming along,” he says. “When you volunteer in a lovely park, you’ll get 100 or more people smiling and saying thankyou to you in the morning. And that’s really good for you!”

He added that the big number of parkruns in the region will fit well with the ambition to boost public health in South Yorkshire, and the proximity of runs to areas of lower activity and life expectancy is crucially important (like Parkwood Springs, for example).

The South Yorkshire Mayor’s parkrun challenge is just getting going, and organisers say to check the https://southyorkshire-ca.gov.uk/explore/active-travel website and social media for more details as the challenge schedule progresses.

The Parkwood Springs parkrun is being organised by the Friends of Parkwood Springs (https://www.facebook.com/FriendsOfParkwoodSprings) - they already have thirty members of the volunteer team lined up and some of the £4,000 funding needed to launch the run, but more volunteers and support from local organisations will be very welcome, they say.