Bushy parkrun

Bushy parkrun (formerly Bushy Park Time Trial) is a 5 km run that takes place every Saturday morning at 9am in Bushy Park, Teddington. It has taken place every week since October 2004. It is entirely run by volunteers, and is free to enter.

History

The event started on the October 2 2004 with just 13 runners taking part in the inaugural event. The record number of runners completing the course was 544 people, set in event 162 on October 6 2007. The course record for men was set by the Commonwealth Games silver medalist, Craig Mottram in a time of exactly 14 minutes. The women's record belongs to Olympic Games silver medallist,Sonia O'Sullivan with a time of 16 minutes 22 seconds.

The organisers of Bushy parkrun went on to form parkrun (originally UKTT), an umbrella organisation that supports similar events around the UK (as well as one in Zimbabwe). The event changed its name from Bushy Park Time Trial in October 2008.

List of famous people who have done the Bushy parkrun

*Craig Mottram, Australian 5000 m runner
*Sonia O'Sullivan, Irish Olympic silver medallist
*Jodie Swallow, British triathlete
*Richard Stannard, British triathlete
*Collins Kosgei, Kenyan athlete
*Dennis Ndiso, Kenyan athlete
*Richard Dunwoody, jockey who has won the Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup
*Mohammed Farah, European cross country champion

Points Prize Winners

Trivia

*It has become famous locally for the events on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. At the 2007 New Year's Day event, Shane McDermott won the race despite wearing the clothes that he wore at the previous night's New Year celebration party.

*In April 2007 it was awarded the title 'Best UK small event' at the inaugural Runner's Personal Best awards organised by the UK edition of Runner's World magazine.

As of September 6 2008:
*There have been 212 runnings of Bushy parkrun.
*7,049 people have run the event.
*They have run it a total of 44,483 times.
*People from 321 different clubs have run it.
*Twenty runners have completed more than 100 Bushy parkruns, including Darren Wood who has completed 184, and John Hanscomb, after whom the men's points competition trophy is named.

ee also

*parkrun
*Bushy Park
*Wimbledon Common parkrun
*Richmond Park Time Trial

External links

* [http://bushy.parkrun.com/ The official Bushy parkrun website]
* [http://www.parkrun.com/ The website for parkrun, who support all events]
* [http://www.royalparks.gov.uk/parks/bushy_park The Royal Parks - Bushy Park]