The Ultimate Guide to parkrun: Everything You Need to Know About the Friendliest 5K in the World

Perfect for any parkrunner, or wannabe parkrunner, this concise and joyful book reveals how a Saturday 5km run in the park has become a worldwide phenomenon.

The Ultimate Guide to parkrun (always with a lower case p!) covers how parkrun started, how it is staged every week, how to get involved as a runner, walker, or volunteer – and even how to start your own run.

Written by a running writer and qualified athletics coach, this celebratory book goes behind the scenes to tell the heartwarming human stories behind parkrun. But it also brims with practical information, with training plans for different types of runners so that you can (if you wish to) improve your own finishing time.

Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the founding of the mass participation event in Autumn 2024, the book delves into parkrun’s origins as the brainchild of Paul Sinton-Hewitt, an unemployed man in London. Just 13 runners competed in the first Bushy Park Time Trial on 2 October 2004.

Now parkrun has more than 9 million runners at more than 2,200 parks in 23 countries, with the most popular countries being the UK, Australia, and South Africa.

The book features all aspects of parkrun, including how public-spirited volunteers put on the event, sustainably and for free, every week, and fun boxes such as the most interesting courses around the world, from Poland to the Falkland Islands.

'This great book shows how parkrun brings people and communities together, and will help spread the word about how special parkrun is.' – Nell McAndrew, model, TV presenter and runner

About the author
Lucy Waterlow is a journalist, ghostwriter and author who has contributed to national newspapers and specialist publications such as Runner’s World and Women’s Running.

She is a keen amateur runner, and a qualified England Athletics coach in running fitness. She is the co-author of Nell McAndrew's Guide To Running and Run Mummy Run: Inspiring Women to be Fit, Healthy and Happy.

Lucy Waterlow is a journalist, ghostwriter and author who has contributed to numerous titles including The Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail, Women's Running, and Runner's World.She is the co-author of Nell McAndrew's Guide To Running (published by Bloomsbury) and Run Mummy Run: Inspiring Women to be Fit, Healthy and Happy (published by Summersdale).Lucy is also the ghostwriter of accomplished ultra runner Mimi Anderson's two memoirs: Beyond Impossible: From Reluctant Runner to Guinness World Record Holder, and Limitless: An Ultrarunner's Story of Pain, Perseverance and the Pursuit of Success (both published by Summersdale).Mum-of-two Lucy loves to run and race on the roads, track and cross country after taking up the sport as a child, inspired by her marathon-mad dad and elite athlete sister. She regularly joins in parkrun and competes for her local running club, St Albans Striders. With a marathon PB of 3.06 and half PB of 83.43, Lucy is currently training to try and break three hours for the marathon.She is passionate about getting others to discover the joy of running and in 2022 qualified as an England Athletics coach in running fitness. She's employed as a one-to-one coach for RunningJo, and volunteers to lead group sessions at her running club.Follow Lucy on Instagram @runningfeatlucy