I want to start by saying that I promise this isn’t going to turn into a really pushy post telling people that they *must* volunteer at parkrun. It took me a long time to pluck up the courage to volunteer at my local parkrun. At one stage my parkrun stats were the number of runs completed 28 and the number of volunteering stints completed zero. Not the best ratio of running to volunteering.

A running injury at the end of 2018 meant that I was unable to run, so I decided to be brave and to volunteer as a marshal at Sutton Park parkrun. I enjoyed volunteering so much, when I moved back home to Sutton Coldfield the following summer, I found myself volunteering as a marshal pretty much every Saturday.

Before I go any further, I’m going to share a bit of information about parkrun, its history, some stats, how it works, and how you can take part.

According to the parkrun site the first ever event was held in Bushy Park, Teddington where 13 parkrunners got together at 08:45 on 2 October 2004. The volunteer team included Paul and Joanne Sinton-Hewitt, Duncan Gaskell, Simon Hedger, and Robin Drummond. It took some time for parkrun to spread beyond Bushy Park and in 2007 when the second parkrun was started in Wimbledon Common, the number of events grew from one to five events, with the first event outside of London starting in Woodhouse Moor in Leeds.

I’m a self-confessed stats geek so I checked out the current stats on the UK parkrun page. As of Wednesday 29 June 2022 there have been 199,650 events, 359,345 volunteers, 2,613,433 finishers, and 40,688,878 finishes in 773 locations. Each participant has finished an average of 15.6 parkruns with an average finish time of 28:58.

To begin with, results were collated on paper and the finish tokens were washers from the local hardware store. I can’t even begin to imagine how time-consuming that must have been. As the number of parkrunners increased the technology increased and the parkrun registration and barcode result system were born. Now many hundreds of thousands of parkrunners are processed, websites updated and millions of emails sent out each week.

Although the parkrun community is growing all the time, the concept is still incredibly simple. In fact, parkrun is still based on the simple, basic principles formed from the start: weekly, free, 5k, for everyone, forever.

Anyway, back to the point of this blog, volunteering at your local (or any) parkrun.

Since parkrun restarted last July, I’ve volunteered as a marshal in several locations in Sutton Park and have loved supporting all of the participants. I’ve also had a go at tail walking, funnel manager, timekeeping, barcode scanning post-event close down, and token sorting. While I’ve enjoyed all of the volunteer roles I’ve tried and tracking my volunteering on Running Challenges, I love getting to wear the orange tail walking vest and walking the Sutton Park parkrun course.

I follow several local parkruns on Facebook, and a lot of events have unfortunately struggled to fill their volunteer rosters since parkrun restarted last July. Last weekend, a local parkrun was almost cancelled due to a lack of volunteers. Fortunately, a few people agreed to help on the morning, so parkrun was able to go ahead. I’ve just checked and the future volunteer roster for Sutton Park parkrun is looking quite empty, I’m sure other volunteer rosters have a lot of gaps in them.

I hope that my ‘10 reasons to volunteer’ convince at least a couple of people who read this to wear the stylish pink parkrun high-viz.

1. As an injured runner, volunteering lets me experience the running buzz – I love the running ‘buzz’ that taking part in races gives me. In my opinion, few things in life beat the post-race high. I’ve found that volunteering at my local parkrun is a good way of recreating the running buzz, without having to actually pin on a number and race. So, if you’re injured, you’re training for a different event and parkrun falls on a rest day, or if you simply fancy recreating the running buzz, I can pretty much guarantee that volunteering provides all of the same feel-good factors that taking part in a race does.

2. Regular volunteers can purchase milestone t-shirts – Earning my purple volunteer v25 t-shirt was a proud moment, but I must admit that I felt slightly frustrated that volunteers were unable to earn additional milestone t-shirts. That was until last year when parkrun shared a blog post that outlined some changes to milestone t-shirts. I like to think that parkrun had listened to feedback from volunteers because last September they introduced new milestone clubs (and t-shirts) such that for every existing walking, jogging, and running milestone club there is now a volunteering equivalent (i.e. v50, v100, v250, v500). The new volunteering milestone t-shirts are identical (same colours) to the existing milestone range, except for the different branding on the back.

[Source]

And if for whatever reason a volunteer doesn’t want to purchase a milestone t-shirt, parkrun recently introduced milestone pin badges.

3. Volunteering can actually make you a better runner – As a mid to back of the pack runner, I used to think the front runners found parkrun effortless. I had visions of super speedy runners gliding around my local parkrun without breaking a sweat. Believe me, they don’t. As a volunteer, you get to see people of all ages and abilities run. I used to worry that I was the only runner who found the Sutton Park course challenging, I now know that everyone finds the course difficult.

4. Volunteering is good for your health – Searching ‘is volunteering good for your health?’ on Google yielded about 168,000,000 results. Searching for “parkrun volunteering benefits” yielded about 907,000 results. I’ve included links to a couple of open access articles at the end of this post. I didn’t have time to look through many results, but I saw links to research showing improvements in blood pressure, mental health, self-esteem, and many other amazing health benefits. I know that volunteering at parkrun improves my mood, reduces my anxiety, and gets the weekend off to a positive start. I also know that when parkrun was temporarily suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, my mental health suffered, and my anxiety increased. I missed parkrun.

5. It’s relatively straightforward – Volunteering at parkrun should always be fun. First, and most importantly, volunteers will never be asked to do anything they are not comfortable with. If you don’t want a particular task – I personally avoided timekeeping until I got to know how parkrun works and I felt confident enough to give it a go – you can let a member of the Core Team know and they will give you an alternative task. All volunteering roles are relatively straightforward and full training is provided when needed. I’m a technophobe and if I can use the parkrun Volunteer App, anyone can.

6. You can pay it back – I hope that running karma is real and that by volunteering at parkrun each Saturday, I’m paying it back to the running community so to speak. During a race, if you’ve ever been lost, thirsty or just needed some extra encouragement, then you already know how incredibly important volunteers are. I’m sure that every runner will be able to remember at least one example of when some well-timed encouragement has helped turn a bad run into a more enjoyable run. Why not return the favour and spend an hour on a Saturday morning cheering people on as a marshal?

7. It’s a great place to gain work experience – I am incredibly fortunate as I have a full-time job and a lot of work experience. Not everyone is so lucky, this is where volunteering at parkrun can help. For example, if you are looking for a DofE volunteering opportunity, parkrun is perfect. I’ve met a lot of people working towards their DofE awards, without them my local parkrun would struggle for volunteers. As a regular volunteer, you have the opportunity to take on a regular responsibility. I’m currently building up the courage to give a First Timers Briefing at my local parkrun. I’m not very confident at speaking in public so this will definitely push me out of my comfort zone.

8. You don’t have to be a runner to volunteer – I suspect there may be a bit of a misconception that to volunteer at parkrun you have to be a runner, you don’t. I can name quite a few regular volunteers at my local parkrun who aren’t runners for various reasons. Some have never run, others like me are injured and prefer volunteering to running. I’ve actually now reached the stage I’d rather volunteer than run, volunteering can be slightly addictive. So, please don’t let the fact you aren’t a runner stop you from volunteering. On the flip side, when you volunteer you may be so inspired by parkrun that you invest in a pair of trainers. This has happened quite a few times at my local parkrun.

9. You get to experience the magic of parkrun – This is going to sound a little cheesy so apologies in advance. By volunteering at my local parkrun regularly, I’ve got to know a lot of the regular participants. I’ve witnessed several personal journeys, including people who initially had to walk the course progressing to running the 5km course. Pre-Covid I was on the receiving end of some slightly sweaty hugs when a participant has realised they have absolutely smashed their personal best. There have been tears of joy on more than one occasion, sometimes it can get a little emotional in the finish area.

10. It’s a great way of making new friends – And finally, thanks to volunteering at my local parkrun I’ve made some great new friends. Although I’ve lived in the Sutton Coldfield area for most of my life, I don’t actually have many friends. My once more or less completely empty social calendar is now looking slightly healthier. The post-parkrun breakfast at the Communitea Café in Boldmere is always entertaining.

And finally, a massive thank-you to everyone at Sutton Park parkrun for making my Saturday mornings so much fun. Thanks the volunteer photographers; Nicola, Vicky, Daniel, Peter, and Rob who captured most of the photos in this post. Perhaps I should have added an eleventh reason to volunteer at parkrun; the amazing photos that are free.

#loveparkrun

Some Useful Links:

Celebrating 17 years – The evolution of volunteering at parkrun https://blog.parkrun.com/uk/2021/09/28/celebrating-17-years-the-evolution-of-volunteering-at-parkrun/

How to Volunteer at parkrun – https://blog.parkrun.com/uk/2021/09/22/how-to-volunteer-at-parkrun/

parkrun Volunteer Hub – https://volunteer.parkrun.com/

Prescribing parkrun – https://bjgp.org/content/bjgp/68/677/588.full.pdf (open access)

---