Overview
- Darren Wood completed his 1,000th parkrun on Saturday at Morden parkrun in south London, running through a guard of honour and receiving a yellow 1,000 T-shirt, a cape and a crown.
- Wood has taken part in parkruns at 119 different locations across seven countries and has volunteered 415 times at 5k and 2k junior events.
- He credits the weekly routine and community of parkrun with helping him through severe mental-health struggles after his marriage ended and says the organisation 'changed and saved my life.'
- Wood helped set up Edenbrook parkrun in 2022 and has worked with prison-based parkruns, using his profile to urge people to try parkrun and to speak up when they are struggling.
- Parkrun began as a Bushy Park time trial in October 2004 and has grown to about 913 locations in 23 countries with more than four million participants, a scale that gives Wood’s milestone broader public interest and could boost volunteer-led local events.