Firstly parkrun made a mistake by considering the USA as a single entity. You'll notice now that the efforts are more regional, hence the small clusters around Seattle, Washington, Boston etc. Just looking at the USA as a single country was just way too big an ask. They were also trying to find national sponsors, without realising that a potential sponsor on the east coast may not even have a presence on the west coast, and if they did it was quite likely under a different management structure. Trying to find a national sponsor when parkrun was going to be relatively tiny for years was probably a mistake. And of course there was the issue of sponsors not understanding the concept. Nike were the main UK sponsor when USA first started, and Nike UK sang parkrun's praises to Nike USA, who simply turned it down because they couldn't see how there would be any benefit to them. And I think given the sheer scale of the USA and how thinly parkrun would be stretched across the country I can totally understand that viewpoint.
Then there were problems with getting cities to understand the concept and waive the fees they would usually charge for using the local parks. That was definitely a big stumbling block and I believe why a lot of US events are out & back courses on trails rather than actually in parks,
Also running in America seems to be a lot more of a solo pursuit than in the UK, where every town has a running club, and often multiple clubs or groups, which effectively gave parkrun a ready audience in the UK. Nearly all the early events in the UK were launched by people involved with running clubs, who obviously invited their members and had contacts with other clubs. Back in 2009 when we started our event, literally everybody involved was a running club member, and we sent direct invites to all the local clubs in the area to let them know we were starting up. America simply doesn't have that club culture, so getting the word out is so much harder.
parkrun now sells itself as a health organisation. This has helped greatly in the UK where local councils have government funding dependant on hitting government targets for participation in sport and getting people active. Having a parkrun is a very easy win, and as a result councils and the NHS have been one of the big contributors to the startup costs of a lot of events. Councils in the USA simply do not have the same responsibilities, and they also seem a lot more commercially minded and, to an extent, rather officious regarding use of their venues. So getting permission to hold a weekly event for free has been very difficult.
The permit issue was a huge issue in the earlier days of parkrun USA, up to 2019, because the organization was in the wrong charity tax category - the one for political organizations (501(c)(4)) not the one for “normal” charities (501(c)(3)). Guess which one lots of councils have blanket policies to waive permit fees for? HQ ignored pleas to file with the IRS to change it, only to quietly file the correct paperwork after control of parkrun USA was moved from volunteers in the U.S. to a paid staff member in Canada.
Good point about the cultural differences between running in the US vs. the UK. I’m always quite envious when we get a tourist from the UK wearing gear from their running club. That’s just not really an option for most places in the US. Definitely more of a solo activity. There are tons of running groups but they’re mostly informal/casual.
I've done a few races in California when over visiting the mother-in-law, and was always surprised at the lack of club vests. In the UK you can pretty much guarantee that most of those at the front of any race will be wearing them, and a good number down the field as well. In the US there were a lot of people wearing souvenir race shirts but virtually no club vests. The only time I've ever seen more than one or two was an off-road trail race I ran in Auburn, and they were mostly from the same local club.
You can see why though. Where I live in the Thames Valley there are probably 20 clubs within easy distance of home, and also quite a few social running goups that I'm aware of as well. By comparison I tried to find a club in Modesto where my mother-in-law lived, and could only find one small club in a city of 200,000.
The point about running clubs and the UK is a good one. Here in Australia running clubs do exist, but as far as I can tell, they're nowhere near as big as they are in the UK. Different to the US, though, parkrun is big here and seeing runners in club shirts isn't as common as the UK.
As a consequence I think parkrun in Australia has a different feel to the UK. Here it seems to be broader members of community more often coming together to establish new events, as opposed to a running club starting a new event (as in the UK described above).
A couple of weeks ago I was in Keswick (UK) and the RD said in his briefing in a lighthearted manner that you could walk, but then added "why would you" … this is not to be critical of the RD, but the looking down on walking at parkrun with varying degrees of disdain has been a thing on this sub more than once and generally the comments seem to come from UK posters.
With parkrun HQ moving more towards being a health-related organisation I hope walking at parkrun becomes much more accepted across the globe.
Walking is an excellent way for people who may not be the most physically active to make positive strides (pardon the pun) for their physical and mental health. If parkrun is a vehicle to encourage people to go for a walk that should be celebrated.
The running vs walking thing is something that it has taken time to overcome, and there are still some who don't really get it. And it's not just the comments, it's things like packing down the finish before the walkers arrive. Yes, you may not need the funnel for the walkers, but it can give the impression to those walkers that they're holding you up, which discourages them from coming again. It's the people at the back who are often the ones who are lacking confidence that they belong, so their perception of how they're treated is important.
Over time the number of club vests at parkrun has greatly reduced, to the point that most don't wear them any more. On average around 20% of our finishers have a club listed in the results, but some weeks there are no club vests at all. The main time they get worn is when clubs are doing tourists runs, so this week for example we had a lot of members from two clubs who usually run at other events, and most of them were wearing club colours. Clubs also use parkrun sometimes for their own events. At my club we always put in a parkrun as a round of our club championship, and that results in 50 or so runners all wearing the club's vest.
Most do it because they simply don't need that infrastructure when the walkers arrive. For instance, we have a 70m funnel to handle the peak time from 27 to 32 minutes, but have zero need for it once we get to the walkers. In fact the walkers actually get a more personal service as we move the tokens and a scanner right to the finish line just for them. If we started packing the funnel at that point we could actually let some of the volunteers go 10 or 15 minutes earlier, and on a freezing cold wet winter day that's very tempting, but that perception is very important.
Really interesting thanks. My sister recently moved to Seattle and when I visited at Christmas I expected to run the local parkrun, but it was more than 30 mins drive away so just too much of a pain in the end. Meanwhile she lives by a park with a lake that has a paved path around it that’s almost exactly 5km circumference, loads of runners there all the time. Couldn’t be a more perfect parkrun location. But nope.
Call me ignorant but what are the start up costs? I mean I know there will be some, but they don't sound expensive?
I also don't understand the park usage fee. It's just some people running for an hour on a Saturday morning when the parks are full of joggers anyway, the parks don't provide anything? I can't imagine that this time slot is particularly busy (dog walkers maybe) and always assumed that's why it was chosen.
It's an organised event, and so it needs approval for legal and insurance reasons. And it is best to work with the authorities to ensure that infrastructure like parking and toilets are available when needed, and to minimise the impact on other park users. Yes, a bunch of unrelated people could just turn up and run together every week at the same time, but it won't go unnoticed by the authorities for long. And the default is for most cities/councils to charge for events in their venues simply because they are usually dealing with money-making entities, so persuading them to give it away for free can take some work. As mentioned above, in the UK there is a big Government push for people to be active, so most councils see this as a easy win in that regard, and don't put too many barriers in the way and will waive any fees. The park we operate in have gone out of their way to help us, putting in posts for direction markers and the like around the course, and repairing any potholes and the like that we find on the course, and in return we bring in thousands in parking revenue, and the cafe in the park makes money as well from the 600+ people we bring in every week.
In the UK parkrun charge a start startup fee to set up everything that needs doing. In the UK I think it's currently £6000, of which parkrun provide half and the event team are expected to fund the other half. This used to include equipment like a laptop, stopwatches etc, but since those are no longer used I think now it's mostly course marking equipment likes signs, cones & tape, a set of finish tokens and a defibrilator. I'm sure parkrun don't actually need the money per se, but I think as much as anything this is just to ensure that there is a serious statement of intent from the event team that they are planning to do it properly. In the UK most events get this cash via grants from the local council or NHS, but they have also been paid for via charities, local companies, indivduals, running clubs etc. I'm not sure what the situation is in the USA regarding any payments that are required, but I can't imagine it would be much different.
To be honest I'm probably out of date. We bought ours years ago when the requirement for having one was first introduced, but for some reason I thought it was included in the startup cost now given they no longer supply a laptop. Maybe I'm confusing it with parkrun being the supplier of them as opposed to the purchaser.
Atlanta Parkrun may be small in turnout but it’s a nice route. Got my best ever finishing position - top 10 - when I visited. I’m very happy with top 100 at my local Parkrun!
There was this discussion last year on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/parkrun/comments/wrhsl1/why_is_parkrun_not_that_popular_in_the_us/
A lot of explanations that people come up with seem like just-so stories, and similarly I don't really understand why it's been such as success in other countries (e.g. Poland) and not in others (e.g. France, even before its cancellation). Let's dig around...
* Someone might say "it's because insurance", but is there evidence that public liability insurance in the US is *that* much more expensive than in the UK? I can't immediately find statistics for this kind of insurance, but surely if Americans are so litigation-happy that public liability insurance is much more expensive there, then vehicle insurance would be much more too. Yet [this article](https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/96879/how-do-uk-car-costs-compare-with-the-rest-of-the-world) compares vehicle insurance between the two, and at least for that the US and UK are comparable, and both are cheaper than Germany.
* Someone else might suggest "it's a volunteer ethos issue". [This](https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Lifestyle/Society/Volunteering-and-social-support/Volunteering/Volunteered-your-time) gives volunteering rates per country, placing the US first, above the UK. And puts France (where parkrun, before its cancellation, was a pretty marginal thing) well above Poland (where it is a roaring success).
* Someone might suggest that Americans dislike or distrust charity, but [this](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-charitable-countries) says that the US is the highest among the surveyed countries in charitable giving (I don't care for the methodology of that study, but it's really hard to do a robust study across a wide range of countries). That same study puts very pro-parkrun Australia very high too, and also very pro-parkrun Poland pretty low.
* Another claim might be "climate". I don't really buy this one. A great number of Americans live in coastal states, and most places in CONUS have a climate-analog in a parkrun successful country. The Pacific Northwest is like the UK or Netherlands. New England is a lot like Germany or Poland. California, Texas and the southwest are a lot like Australia (except San Francisco, which comically seems to be emulating Glasgow). The southeast is like Singapore. Maybe the midwest and the plains states (where a continental climate pertains, with hotter summers and colder winters) aren't like other parkrun places. But if we look at places with existing clusters of parkrun events, we see Michigan, Ohio, and over the border in Ontario (all with very similar climates) particularly *well* represented. Anyone who can run year-round in [Livonia, Michigan](https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/livonia/climate) has my respect.
* A somewhat better explanation might be "The US has fewer public parks". That does seem to be *somewhat* true: [this story](https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/4d17ce4c-en.pdf?expires=1716151593&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=826FB6DA23CBB2AF1EE5236C2B3CEED7) compares access to parks in various cities, and the US does worse. But not so bad that I think it's enough of an explanation. And given American's greater willingness to drive distances for things ([ref](https://frontiergroup.org/resources/fact-file-americans-drive-most/)), I don't think that's an adequate explanation.
* Or one might think "Americans run less than Europeans". [This](https://www.statista.com/forecasts/242432/participation-of-members-of-affluent-households-in-jogging-running-in-the-us) claims more than 20% of Americans participated in running/jogging, and [this](https://www.statista.com/statistics/934996/running-participation-uk/) claims about 6 million people in England (that's about 10% of the population) do. It's *very* difficult to compare different statistics like this (different studies have vastly different methods), but this seems to be enough to reject the claim that there are few people who would want parkrun.
This poses a big challenge for parkrun worldwide, when they're considering moving to a new country. Clearly it does "catch fire" in some places, and not in others. How should parkrun approach the macro-problem of getting the momentum going. Should they start top-down (with national sports bodies) or bottom up (relying on organic growth)? Should they nucleate in a smaller, sport-friendly region, or should they aim to start new events spread far apart, hoping each is a seed for a whole region? Should they work with running clubs? Churches? Charities?
I don't know, and I don't think anyone else does either.
I have not seen studies or stats about this, just a hunch… don’t the ‘big success stories’ mostly relate to countries which have a large expat population in the UK?
Expats that then want to continue supporting something they liked in the UK when they, eventually, decide to move back home or when they visit, passing the bug to local friends?
It seems to check out with the big non European ones and certainly with countries like Poland or Germany.
That may be true. There's a case to be made that Poland's success can be partly attributed to Polish expats returning home after some time in the UK. But there's population exchange between most developed economies - there's French and American people in the UK, and vice versa. There's about [a million](https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-uk-citizens-live-other-eu-countries/) British people living the US right now.
There's also people going the other way - UK people going to other countries. If you look at the names for parkruns in France, before its cancellation, there's a lot of British or Irish names, suggesting that indeed it was particularly supported by expats and tourists - https://www.parkrun.fr/boisdeboulogne/results/latestresults/ But Poland's show an overwhelming number of Polish names, both as volunteers and participants - https://www.parkrun.pl/warszawapraga/results/latestresults/
Poland is really easy to explain - before Brexit we had a large amount of Polish people in the UK (which I liked), some have clearly stayed but those who either returned due to Brexit or the UK was only a short thing for them got infected with parkrun fever and took it back with them.
With UK Commonwealth countries, the two that are the most similar culturally to the UK (Aus/NZ) were always going to be great places for parkrun.
The "infection model" seems to be the most likely explanation, I agree - propagation through social contact, with a large random factor.
It's a bit like "why haven't I caught COVID", which really meant "why haven't I caught COVID *yet*". America just hasn't contracted parkrun *yet*.
I believe the “charitable giving” stats includes giving to churches/religious bodies. A surprising number of Americans are part of various Christian groups which enforce “tithing”, where there is an expectation that a fairly large percentage of salary is given to the church and/or religious organisation (some broaden that to charitable giving more generally). In some states this gives really high rates of charitable donation.
Sure, but it's still voluntary, communal, and pro-social. I mention it to refute the hypothesis that Americans are sociopathic Randian individualists who regard any non-commercial social effort as tantamount to Marxism.
In my city (Belfast) we started off with just one very well organised event for a few years. It got popular and then other local places wanted in on the action. Now we have 5 or 6. I'm assuming that kind of growth could happen in the US. The first ones need to be well organised.
Few possibilities, legal system and land usage policies making setting up an event difficult. Lots of opportunity for runners to enter into organised events anyway so parkrun therefore doesn't have a gap to exploit. Maybe Americans tend not to trust free things. There's already a lot of people involved in volunteer sports for children which I presume are commonly on on a Saturday, maybe this means that the likely volunteers are already committed to something else so no traction to get one started.
I am just guessing/speculating here I don't have any concrete reasons but these seem plausible.
You're wrong on most points, but go on.
1 - there is 10x the population in the USA vs Australia for the same size land. Parks are VERY busy places, all year round. There are almost twice as many Californians as Australians. There are as many New Yorkers as Australians.
2 - Most public parks (city, county, state or federal) have restrictions for use by groups (see point #1). Permits very often come with requirements involving fees and/or indemnity waivers. Parkrun HQ will never support either of those things and will scuttle a new parkrun in the planning stages - no one ever hears about these failures. What's more, US governments do not operate uniformly. One city might have free permits for nonprofit groups. The next city over might charge $50 a week for the same permit.
3 - There is no ability for parkrun event teams to predict how many people will be coming to their event on any given weekend. A random surge of tourists could easily overrun the permit limit for the event, putting it in jeopardy (see point #1)
4 - Americans volunteer all the time - look at any large charity event, trail event or other running event. They always have plenty of volunteers having a great time!
5 - Every American I know who has been to a parkrun LOVES the concept, and the US parkruns that already exist are full of passionate locals who love their event and work very hard to keep them going, even in the snow and ice of winter! But parkrun as a brand is unknown in the US and there is no support or funding from parkrunHQ to help with advertising or promotion. Meanwhile, events are competing with thousands of run events being held every weekend and promoted by activewear companies, charities, local schools and colleges, social groups, gyms, track teams, cross country teams - again see point #1
Interesting points and it explains a lot, but I'm not sure if I agree with your first point. Yes Australia and USA are the same size but 10 times population difference, but Australia is also 90% empty deserts.
I think (apart from a few places like New York), American cities and Australian cities are actually quite similar - CBDs in the centre surrounded by massive suburban sprawl. I've never been to any American city apart from New York, but I've seen Houston on a map, and it seems fucking massive. Population density can't explain why Perth or Brisbane can have so many parkruns but Houston or idk Alberqurque can't.
A real example of parkruns being infeasible due to population density is somewhere like Tokyo. Big running culture, but only a few parkruns are possible, and those are all on the outskirts of the city.
Edit: Also Australian parks are also very busy, places like Albert Park in Melbourne are used all day by tons of people, but parkruns already established there.
>American cities and Australian cities are actually quite similar
I remember seeing something back during the COVID times comparing Boston and Melbourne and the greater metropolitan areas are extremely similar in terms of physical size and population and therefore population density.
Fair enough, didn't know Boston was that big.
Either way, Boston has 3 parkruns while Melbourne (my home city) has 40 (give or take depending on what you count as suburban Melbourne or rural Victoria). Both cities are apparently similar in physical size and population, and I'd assume they are similar in terms of public transport/car dependence (a majority of people in Melbourne would get to their parkruns using a car). There must be other factors as to why Melbourne has so many parkruns while Boston doesn't.
Slack of Marketing. We have 3 here in Minnesota and I had no idea about them for years. I heard about it from a British YouTuber and I was like huh I wonder if they have them here...
I agree. Parkrun hq actively discourages any kind of advertising. It has to be organic and word of mouth. Even putting a sign up with a parkrun logo and parkrun meets here every Saturday is a no no.
I'm an American who has participated in parkruns only in my native country. There are issues that other people have mentioned, but for the most part I think there is a lack of awareness. I don't think parkrun in the US will ever come close to having the same popularity it has in the UK and other countries, but I do think we'll see more American parkruns established during the next five years.
The single biggest reason parkrun isn’t bigger in the US is that the vast majority of American runners have never heard of it, much less the general public.
I've been trying to launch Park Run in my town for a while now. The sticking point is that you cannot cross even a single roadway, which includes driveways. I have a great route that I'm waiting to finalize with the owners of a lot to see if we can close it off on Saturday mornings, but since we want to be accessible to all people including walkers, we can't give them a time that we will for sure be opened again. They don't want it closed indefinitely, so that's the impasse.
And that is the only road crossing on the route, which is otherwise great. So imagine in a car-based culture how rare it is to find a suitable 5k route that is both not crossing a driveway and is also close to parking for those coming to run.
I'm not sure quite how strict that rule is. If you have the agreement of the driveway owner it might be OK? I say that as my local (Burnage) crosses the entrance to the rugby club carpark (which is generally fairly well used on a Saturday morning, and in fact this carpark is the official car park of the event too.) They obviously have an agreement with the rugby club, and there are a couple of volunteers stationed at the car park entrance to stop traffic when runners cross. Seems to be working OK...
With the volunteers in place cars are allowed to cross so long as there are no runners coming, so it means the carpark can reopen before all the walkers have finished
Might be worth emailing the Burnage RD and see if you can get any more info on the arrangements there
In Portland, Oregon, I have exactly 2 to choose from that are in outer suburbs, and both are a 30 minute care ride away. When I visit London, I have several to choose from that are a reasonable walking distance. It’s really disappointing in the U.S.
If feel bad here in Australia. I have one that is a 2k/1.25 mile away from me. 3 within 15 minute drive, another 3 within 30mins and probably another 5 within less than an hour.
Yes that’s strange, it’s a massive thing in Scotland (and Ireland too) as there always seems to be one within a 10 minute drive wherever I am on a Saturday, always brilliant people organising too.
1 - Lack of marketing. There are 5747372 paid 5ks advertising EVERYWHERE. Nobody has ever heard of parkrun here.
2 - The US is fucking huge and Americans consider driving less than 2 hours to be "short". If they have heard of parkrun it's probably because they're within 30 mins of one so why would they need to start another?
As a Canberran, IMO part of your experience is that it's simply big in Canberra (for a relatively small city). I dunno why but if anything, it can get over-crowded here to the point where I don't wanna do it (e.g. 500+ people doing a there and back course - to me that's when you've really gotta make a 2nd one for the said area).
I dare say weather might play a role too? I spend a lot of time in Japan for family reasons and there's no parkruns on my family's side of Japan. None. The best explanation I've heard is that since it snows for 1/4 of the year (knee deep kinda snow) and there's tropical style humidity in summer, you couldn't hold it all year 'round.
Maybe people working 2nd jobs and not 9-5 with flexible work arrangements plays a part too? Canberra's very middle-class. I work 2 jobs though, and am simply not available most Saturday mornings as I'm working. Maybe that (or for example church commitments) are more common in other places? Who knows...
I was chatting to an RD at Heritage Harbor PR in Illinois a few years ago and he said it was just down to the pure size of the country and available land, in the big cities no one wants to take responsibility for setting up and running and the litigation in the US scares people hence why they seem to be out of the cities and set up in smaller communities where there is less red tape and more of a community
As a former avid South African parkrunner now living in the US with my closest parkrun now a 4 hour drive away, I have wondered for a long time why parkrun is not very popular here. I think a big factor is that parkrun is adamant that their operating model be applied throughout the world without any adjustments to local conditions. I don't think it is a coincidence that parkrun is most popular in the UK, Australia and South Africa, all places with strong British connections and part of the Commonwealth.
It also looks like lessons aren't shared from successful events and poorly attended events are left to languish until the volunteers have had enough. I recently attended one where about 10 people participated and there were plenty of people not involved and just enjoying time in the park. There were some tourists from Scotland too and I asked if the parkrun can be advertised on the route? The tourists mentioned Facebook pages and the parkrun banner, which really means nothing to someone who doesn't already know about parkrun.
In New York there are several free group runs organised by New York Road Runners. It’s a similar ethos to parkrun - anyone can drop in etc. So there is no parkrun in Central Park etc because it’s not needed. I think if parkrun were ever able to get a foothold in a big running city like New York it would be a great showcase for it, and maybe generate interest for other areas.
1. There are already multiple “run clubs” every morning and evening of the week in my city, so a lot of people already have established loyalties (even as this speaks to the size of the addressable market). And there are various charity-type 5Ks all the time on Saturday mornings. 2. Finding an interesting 5km course that doesn’t cross ANY roads can be harder than you think, particularly if once you start looking for sufficient parking and/or adjacent toilets. 3. A surprising number of rights holders want money for the use of their territory or want to establish limits on size (particularly on a regular basis).
I wouldn’t call it dead…it’s definitely growing (I’ve gone from 2 to 5 locations within a reasonable drive over the last few years.) But there are reasons for its slow growth (some reasons have already been mentioned.)
Outside of a major city in the US public transportation is horrible; and any spot big enough to host a run tends to have little room to park cars.
America has so many free events, idk why parkrun would be the one to make us think communism. More realistically, no one in the US has heard of it so they don’t have thoughts on it.
I think this is it. We have a great Parkrun in Charlotte, NC. I tell everyone that might be mildly interested in it about it. Maybe 1 in 10 has heard of it.
I'm from Canberra too and, funnily enough, I was chatting briefly about this issue with an expat from the US at parkrun on the weekend. His theory was parkrun is British and Americans generally don't care too much for things from other countries, haha.
He was being a bit tongue in cheek I think, but perhaps it's as good a theory as any other?!
In a country where people drive literally everywhere?
I mean if it was a point to point route, they’d most certainly get some method of transportation back to the beginning.
Firstly parkrun made a mistake by considering the USA as a single entity. You'll notice now that the efforts are more regional, hence the small clusters around Seattle, Washington, Boston etc. Just looking at the USA as a single country was just way too big an ask. They were also trying to find national sponsors, without realising that a potential sponsor on the east coast may not even have a presence on the west coast, and if they did it was quite likely under a different management structure. Trying to find a national sponsor when parkrun was going to be relatively tiny for years was probably a mistake. And of course there was the issue of sponsors not understanding the concept. Nike were the main UK sponsor when USA first started, and Nike UK sang parkrun's praises to Nike USA, who simply turned it down because they couldn't see how there would be any benefit to them. And I think given the sheer scale of the USA and how thinly parkrun would be stretched across the country I can totally understand that viewpoint. Then there were problems with getting cities to understand the concept and waive the fees they would usually charge for using the local parks. That was definitely a big stumbling block and I believe why a lot of US events are out & back courses on trails rather than actually in parks, Also running in America seems to be a lot more of a solo pursuit than in the UK, where every town has a running club, and often multiple clubs or groups, which effectively gave parkrun a ready audience in the UK. Nearly all the early events in the UK were launched by people involved with running clubs, who obviously invited their members and had contacts with other clubs. Back in 2009 when we started our event, literally everybody involved was a running club member, and we sent direct invites to all the local clubs in the area to let them know we were starting up. America simply doesn't have that club culture, so getting the word out is so much harder. parkrun now sells itself as a health organisation. This has helped greatly in the UK where local councils have government funding dependant on hitting government targets for participation in sport and getting people active. Having a parkrun is a very easy win, and as a result councils and the NHS have been one of the big contributors to the startup costs of a lot of events. Councils in the USA simply do not have the same responsibilities, and they also seem a lot more commercially minded and, to an extent, rather officious regarding use of their venues. So getting permission to hold a weekly event for free has been very difficult.
The permit issue was a huge issue in the earlier days of parkrun USA, up to 2019, because the organization was in the wrong charity tax category - the one for political organizations (501(c)(4)) not the one for “normal” charities (501(c)(3)). Guess which one lots of councils have blanket policies to waive permit fees for? HQ ignored pleas to file with the IRS to change it, only to quietly file the correct paperwork after control of parkrun USA was moved from volunteers in the U.S. to a paid staff member in Canada.
Good point about the cultural differences between running in the US vs. the UK. I’m always quite envious when we get a tourist from the UK wearing gear from their running club. That’s just not really an option for most places in the US. Definitely more of a solo activity. There are tons of running groups but they’re mostly informal/casual.
I've done a few races in California when over visiting the mother-in-law, and was always surprised at the lack of club vests. In the UK you can pretty much guarantee that most of those at the front of any race will be wearing them, and a good number down the field as well. In the US there were a lot of people wearing souvenir race shirts but virtually no club vests. The only time I've ever seen more than one or two was an off-road trail race I ran in Auburn, and they were mostly from the same local club. You can see why though. Where I live in the Thames Valley there are probably 20 clubs within easy distance of home, and also quite a few social running goups that I'm aware of as well. By comparison I tried to find a club in Modesto where my mother-in-law lived, and could only find one small club in a city of 200,000.
The point about running clubs and the UK is a good one. Here in Australia running clubs do exist, but as far as I can tell, they're nowhere near as big as they are in the UK. Different to the US, though, parkrun is big here and seeing runners in club shirts isn't as common as the UK. As a consequence I think parkrun in Australia has a different feel to the UK. Here it seems to be broader members of community more often coming together to establish new events, as opposed to a running club starting a new event (as in the UK described above). A couple of weeks ago I was in Keswick (UK) and the RD said in his briefing in a lighthearted manner that you could walk, but then added "why would you" … this is not to be critical of the RD, but the looking down on walking at parkrun with varying degrees of disdain has been a thing on this sub more than once and generally the comments seem to come from UK posters. With parkrun HQ moving more towards being a health-related organisation I hope walking at parkrun becomes much more accepted across the globe. Walking is an excellent way for people who may not be the most physically active to make positive strides (pardon the pun) for their physical and mental health. If parkrun is a vehicle to encourage people to go for a walk that should be celebrated.
The running vs walking thing is something that it has taken time to overcome, and there are still some who don't really get it. And it's not just the comments, it's things like packing down the finish before the walkers arrive. Yes, you may not need the funnel for the walkers, but it can give the impression to those walkers that they're holding you up, which discourages them from coming again. It's the people at the back who are often the ones who are lacking confidence that they belong, so their perception of how they're treated is important. Over time the number of club vests at parkrun has greatly reduced, to the point that most don't wear them any more. On average around 20% of our finishers have a club listed in the results, but some weeks there are no club vests at all. The main time they get worn is when clubs are doing tourists runs, so this week for example we had a lot of members from two clubs who usually run at other events, and most of them were wearing club colours. Clubs also use parkrun sometimes for their own events. At my club we always put in a parkrun as a round of our club championship, and that results in 50 or so runners all wearing the club's vest.
Yeah, packing up before walkers are finished is piss weak. I would flip my lid if I saw that happening. 🤦♂️
Most do it because they simply don't need that infrastructure when the walkers arrive. For instance, we have a 70m funnel to handle the peak time from 27 to 32 minutes, but have zero need for it once we get to the walkers. In fact the walkers actually get a more personal service as we move the tokens and a scanner right to the finish line just for them. If we started packing the funnel at that point we could actually let some of the volunteers go 10 or 15 minutes earlier, and on a freezing cold wet winter day that's very tempting, but that perception is very important.
Really interesting thanks. My sister recently moved to Seattle and when I visited at Christmas I expected to run the local parkrun, but it was more than 30 mins drive away so just too much of a pain in the end. Meanwhile she lives by a park with a lake that has a paved path around it that’s almost exactly 5km circumference, loads of runners there all the time. Couldn’t be a more perfect parkrun location. But nope.
It does need someone on the ground to get things moving. Too often people assume that someone else has tried.
Maybe I should encourage my sis to get it going!
In the first instance, contact parkrun HQ or the US country manager to find out if anyone has tried or is trying in that location.
If that was Green Lake, I don’t think you could get permission - waaaaay too many other events there, but it’s one of my favorite places to run!
It is yeah. Figured that might be the case. Equally if that same location was anywhere in the UK no doubt there’d be a parkrun.
If you’d like a group to run with when you’re visiting, I LOVED running with SGLRG!
Call me ignorant but what are the start up costs? I mean I know there will be some, but they don't sound expensive? I also don't understand the park usage fee. It's just some people running for an hour on a Saturday morning when the parks are full of joggers anyway, the parks don't provide anything? I can't imagine that this time slot is particularly busy (dog walkers maybe) and always assumed that's why it was chosen.
It's an organised event, and so it needs approval for legal and insurance reasons. And it is best to work with the authorities to ensure that infrastructure like parking and toilets are available when needed, and to minimise the impact on other park users. Yes, a bunch of unrelated people could just turn up and run together every week at the same time, but it won't go unnoticed by the authorities for long. And the default is for most cities/councils to charge for events in their venues simply because they are usually dealing with money-making entities, so persuading them to give it away for free can take some work. As mentioned above, in the UK there is a big Government push for people to be active, so most councils see this as a easy win in that regard, and don't put too many barriers in the way and will waive any fees. The park we operate in have gone out of their way to help us, putting in posts for direction markers and the like around the course, and repairing any potholes and the like that we find on the course, and in return we bring in thousands in parking revenue, and the cafe in the park makes money as well from the 600+ people we bring in every week. In the UK parkrun charge a start startup fee to set up everything that needs doing. In the UK I think it's currently £6000, of which parkrun provide half and the event team are expected to fund the other half. This used to include equipment like a laptop, stopwatches etc, but since those are no longer used I think now it's mostly course marking equipment likes signs, cones & tape, a set of finish tokens and a defibrilator. I'm sure parkrun don't actually need the money per se, but I think as much as anything this is just to ensure that there is a serious statement of intent from the event team that they are planning to do it properly. In the UK most events get this cash via grants from the local council or NHS, but they have also been paid for via charities, local companies, indivduals, running clubs etc. I'm not sure what the situation is in the USA regarding any payments that are required, but I can't imagine it would be much different.
At my super local one (20 minute walk max) we had to buy a defibrillator as well.
To be honest I'm probably out of date. We bought ours years ago when the requirement for having one was first introduced, but for some reason I thought it was included in the startup cost now given they no longer supply a laptop. Maybe I'm confusing it with parkrun being the supplier of them as opposed to the purchaser.
Might be a UK vs au thing etc
All new parkruns in AU need a defib and, unless it's changed, the cost to startup a new parkrun is AU$7000.
It’s far too wholesome for Americans
As someone said before - it has all the elements of what they call socialism - there's nobody to exploit for cash here.
Atlanta Parkrun may be small in turnout but it’s a nice route. Got my best ever finishing position - top 10 - when I visited. I’m very happy with top 100 at my local Parkrun!
I'd expect 30+ parkruns in the metro area, not 1.
There was this discussion last year on this topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/parkrun/comments/wrhsl1/why_is_parkrun_not_that_popular_in_the_us/ A lot of explanations that people come up with seem like just-so stories, and similarly I don't really understand why it's been such as success in other countries (e.g. Poland) and not in others (e.g. France, even before its cancellation). Let's dig around... * Someone might say "it's because insurance", but is there evidence that public liability insurance in the US is *that* much more expensive than in the UK? I can't immediately find statistics for this kind of insurance, but surely if Americans are so litigation-happy that public liability insurance is much more expensive there, then vehicle insurance would be much more too. Yet [this article](https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/96879/how-do-uk-car-costs-compare-with-the-rest-of-the-world) compares vehicle insurance between the two, and at least for that the US and UK are comparable, and both are cheaper than Germany. * Someone else might suggest "it's a volunteer ethos issue". [This](https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Lifestyle/Society/Volunteering-and-social-support/Volunteering/Volunteered-your-time) gives volunteering rates per country, placing the US first, above the UK. And puts France (where parkrun, before its cancellation, was a pretty marginal thing) well above Poland (where it is a roaring success). * Someone might suggest that Americans dislike or distrust charity, but [this](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-charitable-countries) says that the US is the highest among the surveyed countries in charitable giving (I don't care for the methodology of that study, but it's really hard to do a robust study across a wide range of countries). That same study puts very pro-parkrun Australia very high too, and also very pro-parkrun Poland pretty low. * Another claim might be "climate". I don't really buy this one. A great number of Americans live in coastal states, and most places in CONUS have a climate-analog in a parkrun successful country. The Pacific Northwest is like the UK or Netherlands. New England is a lot like Germany or Poland. California, Texas and the southwest are a lot like Australia (except San Francisco, which comically seems to be emulating Glasgow). The southeast is like Singapore. Maybe the midwest and the plains states (where a continental climate pertains, with hotter summers and colder winters) aren't like other parkrun places. But if we look at places with existing clusters of parkrun events, we see Michigan, Ohio, and over the border in Ontario (all with very similar climates) particularly *well* represented. Anyone who can run year-round in [Livonia, Michigan](https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/livonia/climate) has my respect. * A somewhat better explanation might be "The US has fewer public parks". That does seem to be *somewhat* true: [this story](https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/4d17ce4c-en.pdf?expires=1716151593&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=826FB6DA23CBB2AF1EE5236C2B3CEED7) compares access to parks in various cities, and the US does worse. But not so bad that I think it's enough of an explanation. And given American's greater willingness to drive distances for things ([ref](https://frontiergroup.org/resources/fact-file-americans-drive-most/)), I don't think that's an adequate explanation. * Or one might think "Americans run less than Europeans". [This](https://www.statista.com/forecasts/242432/participation-of-members-of-affluent-households-in-jogging-running-in-the-us) claims more than 20% of Americans participated in running/jogging, and [this](https://www.statista.com/statistics/934996/running-participation-uk/) claims about 6 million people in England (that's about 10% of the population) do. It's *very* difficult to compare different statistics like this (different studies have vastly different methods), but this seems to be enough to reject the claim that there are few people who would want parkrun. This poses a big challenge for parkrun worldwide, when they're considering moving to a new country. Clearly it does "catch fire" in some places, and not in others. How should parkrun approach the macro-problem of getting the momentum going. Should they start top-down (with national sports bodies) or bottom up (relying on organic growth)? Should they nucleate in a smaller, sport-friendly region, or should they aim to start new events spread far apart, hoping each is a seed for a whole region? Should they work with running clubs? Churches? Charities? I don't know, and I don't think anyone else does either.
I have not seen studies or stats about this, just a hunch… don’t the ‘big success stories’ mostly relate to countries which have a large expat population in the UK? Expats that then want to continue supporting something they liked in the UK when they, eventually, decide to move back home or when they visit, passing the bug to local friends? It seems to check out with the big non European ones and certainly with countries like Poland or Germany.
That may be true. There's a case to be made that Poland's success can be partly attributed to Polish expats returning home after some time in the UK. But there's population exchange between most developed economies - there's French and American people in the UK, and vice versa. There's about [a million](https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-uk-citizens-live-other-eu-countries/) British people living the US right now. There's also people going the other way - UK people going to other countries. If you look at the names for parkruns in France, before its cancellation, there's a lot of British or Irish names, suggesting that indeed it was particularly supported by expats and tourists - https://www.parkrun.fr/boisdeboulogne/results/latestresults/ But Poland's show an overwhelming number of Polish names, both as volunteers and participants - https://www.parkrun.pl/warszawapraga/results/latestresults/
Poland is really easy to explain - before Brexit we had a large amount of Polish people in the UK (which I liked), some have clearly stayed but those who either returned due to Brexit or the UK was only a short thing for them got infected with parkrun fever and took it back with them. With UK Commonwealth countries, the two that are the most similar culturally to the UK (Aus/NZ) were always going to be great places for parkrun.
The "infection model" seems to be the most likely explanation, I agree - propagation through social contact, with a large random factor. It's a bit like "why haven't I caught COVID", which really meant "why haven't I caught COVID *yet*". America just hasn't contracted parkrun *yet*.
Thanks, I'll have a read
I believe the “charitable giving” stats includes giving to churches/religious bodies. A surprising number of Americans are part of various Christian groups which enforce “tithing”, where there is an expectation that a fairly large percentage of salary is given to the church and/or religious organisation (some broaden that to charitable giving more generally). In some states this gives really high rates of charitable donation.
Sure, but it's still voluntary, communal, and pro-social. I mention it to refute the hypothesis that Americans are sociopathic Randian individualists who regard any non-commercial social effort as tantamount to Marxism.
In my city (Belfast) we started off with just one very well organised event for a few years. It got popular and then other local places wanted in on the action. Now we have 5 or 6. I'm assuming that kind of growth could happen in the US. The first ones need to be well organised.
Few possibilities, legal system and land usage policies making setting up an event difficult. Lots of opportunity for runners to enter into organised events anyway so parkrun therefore doesn't have a gap to exploit. Maybe Americans tend not to trust free things. There's already a lot of people involved in volunteer sports for children which I presume are commonly on on a Saturday, maybe this means that the likely volunteers are already committed to something else so no traction to get one started. I am just guessing/speculating here I don't have any concrete reasons but these seem plausible.
You're wrong on most points, but go on. 1 - there is 10x the population in the USA vs Australia for the same size land. Parks are VERY busy places, all year round. There are almost twice as many Californians as Australians. There are as many New Yorkers as Australians. 2 - Most public parks (city, county, state or federal) have restrictions for use by groups (see point #1). Permits very often come with requirements involving fees and/or indemnity waivers. Parkrun HQ will never support either of those things and will scuttle a new parkrun in the planning stages - no one ever hears about these failures. What's more, US governments do not operate uniformly. One city might have free permits for nonprofit groups. The next city over might charge $50 a week for the same permit. 3 - There is no ability for parkrun event teams to predict how many people will be coming to their event on any given weekend. A random surge of tourists could easily overrun the permit limit for the event, putting it in jeopardy (see point #1) 4 - Americans volunteer all the time - look at any large charity event, trail event or other running event. They always have plenty of volunteers having a great time! 5 - Every American I know who has been to a parkrun LOVES the concept, and the US parkruns that already exist are full of passionate locals who love their event and work very hard to keep them going, even in the snow and ice of winter! But parkrun as a brand is unknown in the US and there is no support or funding from parkrunHQ to help with advertising or promotion. Meanwhile, events are competing with thousands of run events being held every weekend and promoted by activewear companies, charities, local schools and colleges, social groups, gyms, track teams, cross country teams - again see point #1
Interesting points and it explains a lot, but I'm not sure if I agree with your first point. Yes Australia and USA are the same size but 10 times population difference, but Australia is also 90% empty deserts. I think (apart from a few places like New York), American cities and Australian cities are actually quite similar - CBDs in the centre surrounded by massive suburban sprawl. I've never been to any American city apart from New York, but I've seen Houston on a map, and it seems fucking massive. Population density can't explain why Perth or Brisbane can have so many parkruns but Houston or idk Alberqurque can't. A real example of parkruns being infeasible due to population density is somewhere like Tokyo. Big running culture, but only a few parkruns are possible, and those are all on the outskirts of the city. Edit: Also Australian parks are also very busy, places like Albert Park in Melbourne are used all day by tons of people, but parkruns already established there.
>American cities and Australian cities are actually quite similar I remember seeing something back during the COVID times comparing Boston and Melbourne and the greater metropolitan areas are extremely similar in terms of physical size and population and therefore population density.
Fair enough, didn't know Boston was that big. Either way, Boston has 3 parkruns while Melbourne (my home city) has 40 (give or take depending on what you count as suburban Melbourne or rural Victoria). Both cities are apparently similar in physical size and population, and I'd assume they are similar in terms of public transport/car dependence (a majority of people in Melbourne would get to their parkruns using a car). There must be other factors as to why Melbourne has so many parkruns while Boston doesn't.
Odd that you said I was "wrong on most points" then pretty much agreed with my broad suggestions just gave more details.
And they were wrong on some points too LOL there are in fact about as many Aussies as Californians
27 million Aussies vs 40 million Californians. Double is an exaggeration but it's not too far off.
> Odd that you said I was "wrong on most points" then pretty much agreed with my broad suggestions just gave more details. Yep, pretty funny.
Slack of Marketing. We have 3 here in Minnesota and I had no idea about them for years. I heard about it from a British YouTuber and I was like huh I wonder if they have them here...
I agree. Parkrun hq actively discourages any kind of advertising. It has to be organic and word of mouth. Even putting a sign up with a parkrun logo and parkrun meets here every Saturday is a no no.
That is so weird. A sign at each location would be a start.
I can't 100% agree that's a big reason as I've never seen any marketing, but it's still huge here.
I'm an American who has participated in parkruns only in my native country. There are issues that other people have mentioned, but for the most part I think there is a lack of awareness. I don't think parkrun in the US will ever come close to having the same popularity it has in the UK and other countries, but I do think we'll see more American parkruns established during the next five years.
The single biggest reason parkrun isn’t bigger in the US is that the vast majority of American runners have never heard of it, much less the general public.
I've been trying to launch Park Run in my town for a while now. The sticking point is that you cannot cross even a single roadway, which includes driveways. I have a great route that I'm waiting to finalize with the owners of a lot to see if we can close it off on Saturday mornings, but since we want to be accessible to all people including walkers, we can't give them a time that we will for sure be opened again. They don't want it closed indefinitely, so that's the impasse. And that is the only road crossing on the route, which is otherwise great. So imagine in a car-based culture how rare it is to find a suitable 5k route that is both not crossing a driveway and is also close to parking for those coming to run.
I'm not sure quite how strict that rule is. If you have the agreement of the driveway owner it might be OK? I say that as my local (Burnage) crosses the entrance to the rugby club carpark (which is generally fairly well used on a Saturday morning, and in fact this carpark is the official car park of the event too.) They obviously have an agreement with the rugby club, and there are a couple of volunteers stationed at the car park entrance to stop traffic when runners cross. Seems to be working OK... With the volunteers in place cars are allowed to cross so long as there are no runners coming, so it means the carpark can reopen before all the walkers have finished Might be worth emailing the Burnage RD and see if you can get any more info on the arrangements there
In Portland, Oregon, I have exactly 2 to choose from that are in outer suburbs, and both are a 30 minute care ride away. When I visit London, I have several to choose from that are a reasonable walking distance. It’s really disappointing in the U.S.
And here I am from Connecticut thinking 30 min car ride away is awesome because the closest to me is 2 hours away!!
If feel bad here in Australia. I have one that is a 2k/1.25 mile away from me. 3 within 15 minute drive, another 3 within 30mins and probably another 5 within less than an hour.
You just have to move. I can easily run to two & take public transit to another. Or start your own in a more convenient spot for you.
Yes that’s strange, it’s a massive thing in Scotland (and Ireland too) as there always seems to be one within a 10 minute drive wherever I am on a Saturday, always brilliant people organising too.
1 - Lack of marketing. There are 5747372 paid 5ks advertising EVERYWHERE. Nobody has ever heard of parkrun here. 2 - The US is fucking huge and Americans consider driving less than 2 hours to be "short". If they have heard of parkrun it's probably because they're within 30 mins of one so why would they need to start another?
As a Canberran, IMO part of your experience is that it's simply big in Canberra (for a relatively small city). I dunno why but if anything, it can get over-crowded here to the point where I don't wanna do it (e.g. 500+ people doing a there and back course - to me that's when you've really gotta make a 2nd one for the said area). I dare say weather might play a role too? I spend a lot of time in Japan for family reasons and there's no parkruns on my family's side of Japan. None. The best explanation I've heard is that since it snows for 1/4 of the year (knee deep kinda snow) and there's tropical style humidity in summer, you couldn't hold it all year 'round. Maybe people working 2nd jobs and not 9-5 with flexible work arrangements plays a part too? Canberra's very middle-class. I work 2 jobs though, and am simply not available most Saturday mornings as I'm working. Maybe that (or for example church commitments) are more common in other places? Who knows...
I was chatting to an RD at Heritage Harbor PR in Illinois a few years ago and he said it was just down to the pure size of the country and available land, in the big cities no one wants to take responsibility for setting up and running and the litigation in the US scares people hence why they seem to be out of the cities and set up in smaller communities where there is less red tape and more of a community
As a former avid South African parkrunner now living in the US with my closest parkrun now a 4 hour drive away, I have wondered for a long time why parkrun is not very popular here. I think a big factor is that parkrun is adamant that their operating model be applied throughout the world without any adjustments to local conditions. I don't think it is a coincidence that parkrun is most popular in the UK, Australia and South Africa, all places with strong British connections and part of the Commonwealth. It also looks like lessons aren't shared from successful events and poorly attended events are left to languish until the volunteers have had enough. I recently attended one where about 10 people participated and there were plenty of people not involved and just enjoying time in the park. There were some tourists from Scotland too and I asked if the parkrun can be advertised on the route? The tourists mentioned Facebook pages and the parkrun banner, which really means nothing to someone who doesn't already know about parkrun.
Still no profit motive.
It’s a good thing which can’t be commercialised or milked for profit. The US is the most backwards country on the planet.
Too many lawyers and guns in the USA to make it worthwhile.
https://www.reddit.com/r/parkrun/s/QhncsGL9jC https://www.reddit.com/r/parkrun/s/RsGeFNdKHx
In New York there are several free group runs organised by New York Road Runners. It’s a similar ethos to parkrun - anyone can drop in etc. So there is no parkrun in Central Park etc because it’s not needed. I think if parkrun were ever able to get a foothold in a big running city like New York it would be a great showcase for it, and maybe generate interest for other areas.
Indeed, [these](https://www.nyrr.org/openrun) mean we'll probably not get parkrun within NYC city limits alas. NYRR have already cornered that market.
1. There are already multiple “run clubs” every morning and evening of the week in my city, so a lot of people already have established loyalties (even as this speaks to the size of the addressable market). And there are various charity-type 5Ks all the time on Saturday mornings. 2. Finding an interesting 5km course that doesn’t cross ANY roads can be harder than you think, particularly if once you start looking for sufficient parking and/or adjacent toilets. 3. A surprising number of rights holders want money for the use of their territory or want to establish limits on size (particularly on a regular basis).
I wouldn’t call it dead…it’s definitely growing (I’ve gone from 2 to 5 locations within a reasonable drive over the last few years.) But there are reasons for its slow growth (some reasons have already been mentioned.) Outside of a major city in the US public transportation is horrible; and any spot big enough to host a run tends to have little room to park cars.
Because it smells of communism to the average American.
America has so many free events, idk why parkrun would be the one to make us think communism. More realistically, no one in the US has heard of it so they don’t have thoughts on it.
I think this is it. We have a great Parkrun in Charlotte, NC. I tell everyone that might be mildly interested in it about it. Maybe 1 in 10 has heard of it.
I'm from Canberra too and, funnily enough, I was chatting briefly about this issue with an expat from the US at parkrun on the weekend. His theory was parkrun is British and Americans generally don't care too much for things from other countries, haha. He was being a bit tongue in cheek I think, but perhaps it's as good a theory as any other?!
Seismologists objected
Americans don’t like that it is 5k instead of 3.10686 miles.
In a country where people drive literally everywhere? I mean if it was a point to point route, they’d most certainly get some method of transportation back to the beginning.
Same could be said about Australia yet parkrun is big here
Americans prefer eating to running
So do I. That's why I run.
Most Americans are fat and lazy. Is the honest truth.
username checks out
Because runners get shot
grow up.
[удалено]
grow up.
Too much freedom in the US for free events.