Parkrun Main Beach

By Tim Oberg

In October 2010 I met with parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt in a cafe in Wimbledon, South West London, and asked him if I could bring the parkrun concept to Australia. Not long afterwards Paul gave me his blessing and now we are well and truly up and running (literally) with thriving events all over the country, tens of thousands of registered parkrunners and an amazing group of volunteers. I couldn’t be happier.

So how has this all come about?

Once Paul gave me the go ahead the first person I contacted was Samantha Hughes, Senior Active Parks Officer at the Gold Coast City Council. Little did I know that Sam is also an avid runner and in fact a former Gold Coast Marathon winner so immediately she was supportive of the concept.

I moved my family from rainy London to the sunny Gold Coast in January 2011 and met with Sam and her boss, (now former) Mayor of the Gold Coast and running legend Ron Clarke MBE. We agreed on a suitable 5km course at Main Beach and Brendan Murray from Mezzanine Coaching Agency volunteered as our first Event Director. On 4 April 2011 parkrun launched in Australia and we haven’t looked back since.

But parkrun doesn’t just happen on its own. To continue to thrive and grow we rely on the grass roots support from the Australian running community, both in terms of volunteering and participation. So if you live nearby any of our events, or anywhere else where you think a parkrun event will be well received, please get involved or get in touch and become part of parkrun family.

Happy Running!