Academics
from Northumbria University, Newcastle, have published a research paper explaining why parkruns are so popular, particularly among those in
managerial and professional positions.
The
research, Lost and found: parkrun, work and identity, was carried out by
Dr Russell Warhurst and Dr Kate Black from Newcastle Business School at
Northumbria in conjunction with parkrun UK. It comes as the high-profile mass-participation
events are set to resume on Saturday July 24 following the easing of Covid-19
restrictions. Published in Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, Dr Warhurst and Black investigated why despite significant
efforts to broaden the appeal of parkrun among the wider population, a disproportionate
number of parkrunners are in managerial and professional careers. Their research
explored the diverse reasons why
such runners take part and reveals some surprising results.
Started
in 2004, parkrun has become a major
mass-participation running event, with hundreds of thousands taking
part together over five-kilometre distances in different locations across the
UK every Saturday. The huge growth in popularity pre pandemic had seen the events widely
lauded in the fight against obesity.
Dr
Warhurst explains: “The success of parkrun has typically been explained in
terms of a reaction to the dangers of obesity and sedentary lives and, particularly in relation to professionals and managers as having social and mental wellbeing benefits.
Our research delved deeper, inviting parkrunners at
one of the UK’s larger parkruns in Newcastle to
participate in interviews and explain just what parkrun means for them. We found that managers’ and professionals’ reported less
satisfaction from their work than might once have been the case as these workers are subject to ever increasing performance
standards, individual accountability and decreasing autonomy and
discretion.
“While to some extent running was extending these forces of control into workers’ leisure time, reinforcing, for
example, the imperative to continuously improve, achieve and never fail, our
results also paint a more positive picture. With its unique ethos, parkrun is enabling managerial and professional runners to not only
escape from the isolation and pressures of their work but to discover or
rediscover a more autonomous, holistic, healthier and sustainable sense-of-self.”
Dr
Warhurst and Dr Black believe the results of their research provide support for the value of parkrun post-pandemic in view of the further
isolation and pressures that Covid-19 has brought.
Dr
Black adds: “Managerial and professional runners are encouraged to reflect upon and engage with the
non-competitive, participatory ethos of parkrun. This reconnection will enable
such runners to avoid reinforcing what might have been lost in their work
lives and to use parkrun to find a new, positive sense-of-self post-pandemic."
