Canada’s first parkrun was held in Kelowna on Saturday and it was the place to be in town.
More than 150 people signed up for the free 5-kilometre run and approximately 100 of them showed up.
The parkrun is a global phenomenon that takes place around the world every Saturday. Anyone can sign up online for free and when you sign up, you get a free barcode. That barcode works at any parkrun globally.
It’s been in the works for months, but Kelowna hosted Canada’s first parkrun this Saturday. U.K founding managing director Tom Williamson flew in for the run.
"Thank you for inviting me to your beautiful country and your beautiful town. I'm sure this is the first of many many great parkrun days in Canada."
The first Saturday parkrun started in New Zealand and the last person who crossed the finish line in Kelowna was the final parkrun runner for the world this Saturday. Together, more than 140,000 people completed a parkrun globally this weekend.
From this Saturday forward, every Saturday at Truswell Road and Lakeshore, runners can come together on the Greenway and run a free 5 km run. When winter hits the runs will then move to City Park.
The run will start at 9 a.m. every Saturday.
Don’t forget to bring your barcode to each run. When you finish the run, you receive another barcode and both are then scanned by a volunteer. That means you can go online, sign in and compare your times to others around the world. If you don’t want to have your run timed, there is no need to sign up online.
Currently, there are parkruns in 950 different towns in the world.
To learn more about the Okanagan parkrun, click here.
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