Parkrun UK celebrates its 20th year on October 3. Let's have a look back at the history of Exmouth parkrun, which regularly sees hundreds of runners take part.

This week marks 20 years since Parkrun's founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, organised the Bushy Park Time Trial that evolved into parkrun. The first run took place in Wimbledon on October 2, 2004, where 13 runners descended to complete the course.

The nearest course and largest course in East Devon is in Exmouth, which sees around 500 people run 5K starting near The Octagon, to Orcombe Point past the lifeboat station and back again. 

Exmouth's first park run took place on January 24, 2017, and was started by five-time Olympian Jo Pavey, who regularly takes part.

Read more: Exmouth’s first Parkrun is a roaring success.

The course was altered while the seafront was closed by Mickey's, runners were diverted onto the beach and back up the slipway. 

During special events, Exmouth even has bands and acts playing while the runners run. Last Christmas, Exmouth Town Band were on the green playing Christmas songs to the crowd.

Recently, to celebrate 200 years of the RNLI, Exmouth crews ran the course in their 'wet gear' and placed their inshore boat on the green for people to admire.

Hundreds of people turn up in Somerset to their local course every Saturday. Nationally, 200,000 people take part across more than 900 locations in the UK – and while some are experienced runners, others are building up their speed and stamina and many are taking their first steps towards a more active lifestyle.

They are entirely volunteer-led, with people volunteering to marshall the course or scan the runners barcodes so their times can be logged in the leaderboard which is published on the website.

Parkrun rose in popularity during the covid-19 pandemic, as a way for people to keep fit and meet people during lockdown. Completing a parkrun was counted as your daily exercise, so exempt from the covid guidelines.

In 2024, volunteer-led, free-for-all 5k and 2k events take place across the UK every Saturday morning, from 9am. 

The Parkrun UK website says that in the early days, before the barcode system that takes place nowadays results on paper and the finish tokens were washers from the local hardware store. Soon after it was born, the barcode result system was introduced.

Now many hundreds of thousands of parkrunners are processed, websites updated and millions of emails sent each week. See more on the Parkrun website.