Parkrun focuses on inclusivity

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on July 13, 2022.

Henderson Lake Parkrun photo Runners head out from the start line in front of Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden as part of the Canada Day Parkrun event at Henderson.

The global-wide Parkrun was founded at Bushy Park in London, England back in October 2004 and the Lethbridge run was founded in 2019 by Jim and Ellen Carter.
Parkrun is a five-kilometre event that takes place around the world at 9 a.m. every Saturday morning at more than 2,000 locations in 23 countries across five continents.
The Carters had been involved in a Parkrun in Ottawa before moving to Lethbridge four years ago.
“It something that we loved in Ottawa (and) have done a few around the world too,” said Jim.
“Because when it first arrived here, it was obvious that there was an active community and talking to the Runners Soul people, Sean and Erin (Pinder), and they said ‘Yeah, this would be a prime location for something like this.’ And I said, ‘Yeah let’s do it.’
The Carters put an application in the fall of 2018 and the first run was March 30, 2019.
“It’s absolutely free,” said Jim.
“That’s one of the other things is in the mission of Parkrun International is that this is all inclusivity and we invite everyone. Even though we call it Parkrun, we encourage walkers to come, joggers, disabled people of all matters, children four years and up. The whole idea is it’s  a health and wellbeing initiative around the world and it’s free, welcomes everyone and it’s in a park – it’s in a safe environment. It always has to be in a park, you can never cross the road.”
The Lethbridge Parkrun is building.
“In terms of growth we want to grow it more and more that’s for sure,” he said.
“We want to get more and more people out. I talked to the schools, the university, the college, – we have a person that’s associated with the Lethbridge College in their health and wellness program. We connected with the Afghan community, as you’re probably aware there’s very much a growing Afghan community as a result of what’s happening in Afghanistan today. But we connected with a family, a very good family, and they’ve been out at Parkrun too.”
There has been an indigenous runner out since square one of the local Parkrun and he wants to get more members of the indigenous community out too.
Carter talked about one lady that saw improvement by coming to Parkrun.
“We had one lady never ran before in her life and she started with us back in March of 2019 – never ran, very unfit – and a little over year later she ran the Ultra Marathon (Lost Soul 50 kilometre) and she uses this as a building base,” he said.
Megan Wagenaar was up in Lethbridge from Texas visiting her mom a few years back when she heard about the Parkrun and this past Saturday was her third time participating.
“It always fun to run with people, just to get to know more people, it’s a beautiful day and even as an avid runner sometimes you still need a little extra motivation to get going,” she said.
“It’s nice to get in the atmosphere and just hang out with people and talk about running.”
The local Parkrun goes all year long.
Registrants will receive bar code and can take that to any Parkrun in the world free.
The city’s Park Run started with 98 runners in its inception and now four years later reached 1,000 registrants on Canada Day.
The Lethbridge Parkrun takes place in Henderson Lake Park.
More information can be found on the Henderson Lake Parkrun Facebook and Instagram pages.

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