Shropshire Star

Ecstasy for Telford park runners after road map clears the way for return

After almost a year of being kept apart, Telford's close parkrun community is hoping the return of the world's most popular free 5k run will be sooner rather than later.

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Kim Fawke is celebrating after news broke that parkrun could return soon

The Government's latest 'road map' announcement provided a schedule for England's path out of the latest lockdown, hoped to be the last one.

It included provision for organised outdoor runs, covering the weekly free parkrun events that draw thousands all over the world.

parkrun leaders were "excited" following the Government's news, and have provisionally announced that England's shorter junior events will be able to return from April 11, with the full 5k runs to return on June 5.

Among those looking forward to that day is Kim Fawke, original founder and event director of Telford's parkrun, which recently turned eight.

It has been running smoothly and has continued growing since February 2013 thanks to Kim and a dedicated army of volunteers giving up their time for free, and before the lockdown it would regularly draw 600 runners to Telford Town Park at 9am every Saturday.

Ecstatic

Kim is an accomplished but modest runner in her own right, still holding the female record at Telford's parkrun with a time of 16:53.

On the positive news for parkrun she said: "We were ecstatic. We knew about it the day before [the announcement] but we couldn't tell anyone, we had to keep it quiet which was hard because we wanted to tell everybody.

"I think it's 96 days away, not that we're counting! It's amazing the number of people who have contacted us, saying 'we've booked the day off work, we're not working then'.

"We've always had a very good community spirit.

"My son is also a run director and we were joking 'will we remember how to do this?'"

She said that the Telford parkrun community had kept in touch throughout the lockdown with virtual race events.

Hope

Nick Pearson, chief executive officer of parkrun Global, said in a statement: "It’s important to note that the road map presented on Monday applies to England only and whilst we are excited to begin working towards returning events over the coming months, we are not forgetting about our other UK communities in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

"As things stand we are unable to pinpoint a date for returning either junior or 5k parkrun across these three devolved nations, but we continue to work closely with relevant authorities and stakeholders to understand when it may be appropriate.

"Bringing back parkrun events is a huge step for so many of us toward the return of normal life. Of course nothing is guaranteed and there is still, understandably, some uncertainty and trepidation within the community. But working towards these dates gives us all hope. parkrun will be back."