Thetford parkrun keeps on running after celebrating its 500th event

Thetford parkrun celebrated its 500th event on Saturday – with 186 participants taking on the 5km route.

The first town parkrun took place on February 23, 2013, and since then the race has has 9,679 participants who have done 89,096 parkruns between them and covered a distance of 445,480 km.

Over the same period 896 people have volunteered 9,645 times.

Nicholas Jones, the event’s director, said: “It is an absolute accolade to the volunteers, the team of run directors and our local community that Thetford parkrun has reached this incredible milestone.

“Each week we rely solely on volunteers to enable our events to go ahead in a safe manner, and every week people step up to the mark to make it possible.

“We are thankful that the Mayor of Thetford was able to join us and see our runners off. As a team we are proud to be able to put on our event and we look forward to the next 500."

If you were wanting to try and take the record times for the town’s parkrun, which starts and ends at Thetford Priory, the female record is held by Holly Alexandra Archer with a time of 17 minutes and 13 seconds – which was set on the 348th event on August 3, 2019.

The male record is held by Euan Brown, who recorded a time of 15 minutes and 44 seconds on August 28, 2021, at event number 387.