Alberts Farm celebrates 250 Parkruns
ALBERTS FARM – The 250th Parkrun is celebrated at Alberts Farm.
Smiles, fitness, and cake were the order of the day when Alberts Farm had its 250th parkrun on 8 June.
Hundreds of community members, both young and old, turned up with their furry friends to complete another free 5km run in the beautiful park.
“The atmosphere has been amazing, everybody seems to be in a party mood,” said parkrun ambassador in Joburg west, Diana Rodrigues.
Many community members wore green clothes to show support of the parkrun and enjoyed a delicious cake provided by run volunteers afterward.
Run director, James Meakings said community spirit prevailed on the morning.
“Today we are celebrating close on 500 000km’s run by people at this venue, that’s five million steps approximately of commitment to this community that before was just a normal park but now everybody is excited about,” he said.
Rodrigues added the reason for the parkrun being so successful was that Alberts Farm was a beautiful park that had a lovely dam, a challenging hill and flat portions of the route that kept all runners happy.
The natural spring in the park is also reportedly the only artesian spring in Joburg.
Nine-times Comrades Marathon winner, Bruce Fordyce, who first brought parkrun to South Africa, congratulated the parkrun in a letter.
“The difference that this parkrun has made to the health and well-being of the local community cannot be measured but more importantly the difference that it has made to the community spirit is even more difficult to measure. Suffice to say, it is considerable,” he said.
Alberts Farm first hosted a parkrun in August 2014.
Rodrigues encouraged anyone interested in improving their fitness to give parkrun a shot.
“There’s no cut-off time for parkrun so no matter what your fitness level you can do parkruns.”
Parkruns are held at 8am every Saturday at various parks across the world. Once registered, runners receive e-mail notifications of their times.
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