Every Saturday morning for the past year Lithgow runners, walkers and joggers have met at Lithgow’s Pony Club at 7.45am to complete a 5 kilometre track together.
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Lithgow’s parkrun will celebrate its first birthday on Saturday, January 20.
The free, weekly community event is part of a network of 266 local parkrun events with more than 380,000 participants Australia-wide.
Founding member Ross Yates first aired the idea of setting up a parkrun in Lithgow with his running partner Florentina Dulceanu after reading about the events on running websites.
“Initially in 2015 Tina and I would run together around the showground and the paddock next to the pool and I said come on we’ve got to have a parkrun in Lithgow and Tina was like ‘yes, yes, yes’.”
A new member in their jogging contingent spurred them into action.
“Katherine [Costello] got the show moving. We got together and went through the motions of starting up parkrun and applying for grants. We got permission from the Pony Club to use the track and raised enough money from our sponsors,” Mr Yates said.
Initially the group had to gather $5000 to cover insurance and equipment for the weekly event.
“Our territory directors gave us a go ahead last January. And January 21st was our first parkrun.”
Mr Yates said the group wasn’t certain how much interest they would get when they first started out.
“We didn’t know but we knew there were parkruns in Sydney and knew there was a parkrun out at Mudgee,” he said.
“We had a really great turn out to the first one, 133 people came and run,” Lithgow parkrun manager Sian Visser said.
She said it has been great seeing people get involved over the year.
“Particularly, a few of the older ones who walked at first and now you see them jogging bits. It’s nice and there’s a good community feel down here.”
She said numbers of runners and walkers have stabilized to around 20-30 people each week as participation dropped over winter.
The group is hoping to attract new members in 2018.
“It’s for your health and mental health and it has social benefits. You don’t have to come every week,” Ms Visser said.
Mr Yates said the group is much more about community than competition.
“It’s a community event, it’s not a running club. Runners do come here and speed along but it’s mostly about everyone. You can do any part of the trail you want. There’s no constraints or rules,” Mr Yates said.
Members can register for free with parkrun to keep a record of weekly race times.
Ms Visser said the group meets at 7.45am each Saturday morning at the Pony Club where they chat until a race briefing at 7.55 before heading off at 8am.
“We ask if there’s anyone new and give them a welcome and also check if we’ve got any visitors. Parkrun tourism is quite a thing.”
Co-manager Paul Vanstone said that over the year Lithgow Parkrun has had participants from as far as Melbourne and Western Australia visiting the course while they’ve been away from home.
“People can parkrun anywhere,” he said.
“I’ve parkrun in Singapore. You can actually go anywhere and join in and you are welcome straight away.”
Cake and coffee will be on offer after the parkrun on Saturday, January 20. Participants are encouraged to bring along a plate of food to celebrate the event’s birthday. Parkrun meet at Lithgow Pony Club each Saturday at 7.45am for an 8am start.
