If you ever get bored of Pedal to parkrun (unlikely, I know!) then here are a few other parkrun themed websites and blogs I’d recommend. The links are in the titles.
If you have any suggestions of other sites I could add to this list then please get in touch.
Reference sites
The parkrun website is your first port of call for parkrun information.
Here you can find a map showing all the parkrun courses in the world (and the equivalent for Junior parkrun) parkrun results in pretty much any format you can think of, information about parkrun’s sponsors, and the parkrun shop. The shop sells clothing, barcode items, and accessories such as water bottles.
You can also access the official parkrun blog from the website. This covers news, information about new initiatives, and inspirational personal stories.
What I like about the parkrun list on Wikipedia is that you can view by region. This is useful if you’re aiming to achieve regionnaire status for any particular area. For each region, all the parkruns are listed alphabetically. Additional information about the county and the date the parkrun started is given, as well as a brief note about each course.
This site gives you a way of viewing the driving distance from one parkrun to another. For example, you could put in your home parkrun and see a list of every other parkrun in the UK from closest to furthest away. This will show a slightly different order to your NENDY (nearest event not done yet), which is calculated as the crow flies. I’m not sure it’s that useful for cycle touring as you’re unlikely to always want to choose the fastest roads in your route planning, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
This site is useful if you’re wanting to find your nearest parkruns to complete your alphabet. You enter the name of your home parkrun and it tells you the three closest options for each letter.
This site lists all 706 UK parkruns from fastest to slowest (based on the previous year’s data). This can be used to see how “tough” a particular parkrun is. It’s no surprise that the hilliest parkruns and the two that are run on sandy beaches are sitting pretty at the very end of the scale.
This site shows a map of the UK with each parkrun shown in a different colour depending on its “shape” – one-lap, two-laps, out-and-back etc.
Blogs
This is a parkrun tourism blog is written by Ali Sheppard. Ali writes in a lovely style and gives lots of information about the courses she visits.
Mark Layzell shares stories about all sorts of running exploits and there is a whole section of his site dedicated to blogging about his parkrun tourism experiences. He has got more than a hundred parkrun reports on there, including one for every single greater London event.
Although Andrew Burns’s blog also covers some non-parkrun running events, it is really helpful if you’re interested in Irish parkruns. He also does lots of cycling to parkrun, so a big thumbs up there too!
Steven Stockwell has visited hundreds of different parkrun courses in the UK and beyond and has written up blog posts for each. His posts are generally full of history of the park/area as well as a detailed course description and other practical information for fellow tourists. His website also has sections on parkrun tourist tips and volunteering tips, based on his own experiences.
Chris Jeanes details his experiences of visiting parkruns around the UK and occasionally further afield. He covers course descriptions, things to look out for, a description of the elevatin and useful information such as parking, facilities and cafes.