It's Parkrun's 12th birthday: Here's where you can take part this weekend

Saturday is International parkrunday - marking the founding of the series of free, timed 5k runs designed to get people out running in their community - bringing with it health, fitness, wellbeing and social benefits.

The first event took place on October 2 2004 in the London Borough of Richmond, and today is spread across 14 countries with almost 1,000 events every week.

Parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt, said: ‘The first event was Bushy parkrun in Teddington, and there were 13 runners and four volunteers. We call these people pioneers.

‘We have now achieved more than 1,000 years of running and it won’t be long before we welcome our two millionth runner.

‘Over 18 million runs have been supported by 214,886 volunteers.

‘Nobody could have predicted the impact of parkrun on the world. And this is just the beginning.’

Paul said the past 12 years had been ‘interesting, exciting and daunting’ - and more was still to come.

He added: ‘We’ve added 2k junior parkruns to the UK and Ireland families and we’ve established great relationships with our partners.’

Portsmouth area venues where you can take part in parkrun on International parkrunday - they all start at 9am on Saturday:

Southsea- Southsea Esplande (starting at Speaker’s Corner)

Cosham- Lakeside North Harbour, Western Road

Fareham- Cams Hall Estate, Cams Hill

Havant- Staunton Country Park, Middle Park Way

Lee-on-the-Solent- Marine Parade East

Chichester- Oaklands Park

You can get more information, find junior events, and learn how to start your our parkrun at http://www.parkrun.org.uk/