Runners World magazine (UK) have announced their Heroes of Running for 2009 (as voted by the readers of the magazine and website) and parkrun creator Paul Sinton-Hewitt has been recognised for his work in creating parkrun - something I talk about quite often on this site.

“Imagine a race where there’s no registration, no race numbers to pin on and no hassle - all you have to do is turn up and run. Sound good? Well, it’s already out there. And there’s not just one of them - they’re all over the country, they happen every week and, best of all, they’re free.”

Read the full article at the Runners World website. Congratulations Paul - it is very well deserved. The parkrun site has also added a news item to announce the award which in addition to quoting from Paul’s acceptance speech there’s a great summary of the current status of parkrun, which I’ve included below:

“parkrun was established in 2004 and there are now 12 events around the UK, with many more planned. There have been 979 races and 117,000 runs from around 20,000 runners to date, with more than 30,000 PBs set and an average improvement of over a minute per runner for the 5k. The 12 events currently see more than 2,000 runners per week, with around 500 new runners registering every week. Bushy Park parkrun also won the Runners World Best Small Event award in 2007.”

That’s all for now. See you Saturday morning. 9am at your local parkrun.