Parkruns are held every Saturday morning in about 1,200 locations in the UK and abroad. Each one is a community event organised by volunteers and people come to run, jog or walk a 5-kilometre course for enjoyment and physical activity. Each event depends on volunteers to act as timekeepers and marshals, and anyone is eligible. Times around the course are recorded but it is not a competition and participants are simply challenging themselves.
The parkrun movement started in London in 2004. In Plymouth, the Plym Valley Parkrun was already popular in 2019 when its organisers and other volunteers started planning another in Central Park. The course starts and ends at the clock tower and is entirely on the main paths.
The inaugural run took place on Saturday, 13th November 2021 having been delayed by the Covid 19 pandemic. 260 people took part and a similar number have turned out each week since then although sometimes there have been as many as 400.
