You’ve heard of Poole parkrun. Well now Bournemouth has a similar event taking place every Saturday morning at 9am at Kings Park Athletic Stadium.

Bournemouth parkrun is a 5k run/jog and open to everyone, no matter what your age or ability level. Beginners are welcome just as much as club runners.

Organised entirely by volunteers, the event is not about competing with one another. It’s simply to encourage people who want to be a bit more active and enjoy the fresh air as well as each other’s company. But for those who do like to keep track of their times, parkrun is also a timed event.

The first ever parkrun was first launched in Bushy Park in 2004 with a handful of people that decided to run together. Fast-forward the best part of a decade and parkrun now operates in eight countries with close to 375,000 runners.

Collectively, the parkrun events have covered a distance of 14 million kilometres. These statistics illustrate just how successful the event has become purely because people enjoy it.

Poole parkrun was launched in April 2011 with an admirable 65 runners, but 122 events later it consistently attracts more than 500 participants. Bournemouth parkrun event director Ade Holloway said: “We’d love to emulate the success of Poole parkrun.”

So, what better way to start a weekend than a bit of fresh coastal air with other friendly faces?

“Even if you don’t fancy running just yet, we’d always love to have more wonderful volunteers to help us out,” said Ade.

bournemouthoffice@parkrun.com