CARLISLE parkrunner Steve Claringbold brings us his latest column...

IN June of this year I was out in Durban, South Africa.

It was kind of a holiday but the main reason I was out there was to take part in one of the oldest and largest ultra marathons in the world, Comrades Marathon.

While I was there I was amazed and pleased to find that Durban had its own parkrun.

The north beach parkrun takes place at 8am and happened to take place right outside of my hotel window. I had great intentions of taking part but decided on staying in bed a bit longer in the end (given that the next morning I would be up at 2am).

But, once I’d awoke, I looked out of the window to see thousands of runners (2,273 to be exact) heading up the beach and back to complete a 5k out and back along the beach.

There was dancing, there was singing, there was music (there was even a conga line) and everyone was having an amazing time.

There are 109 parkrun’s in South Africa, North Beach parkrun regularly gets around 1,500 participants a week and numbers often swell when Comrades participants are in town.

To get to the point, parkrun makes the world smaller and truly brings people together.

I could turn up in Durban and take part and all I would’ve needed was my barcode. Or, equally, I could turn up and take part in Italy, Namibia, USA or Poland to name a few.

Which is exactly what happened at Carlisle parkrun this week when we entertained a special tourist, Aie Rajapaska who is the Event Director at Presint 18 parkrun in Malaysia.

Carlisle parkrun veteran and Event Director for the day Kathryn Holliday talked with Aie that morning and found out that he was back in the UK to attend his congregation at Newcastle University.

Aie had studied at Newcastle for five years for a PHD in civil engineering.

After attending Newcastle parkrun on several occasions he fell in love with the concept and, after returning to Malaysia to teach civil engineering, he missed parkrun so much that he started one up in his community.

Carlisle parkrun was a brief stop off for Aie as he was off to visit to the Lake District for the weekend.

With that, one person has links to Newcastle, Carlisle and Malaysia. But there are many other parkrunners out there who have links to many parts of the world through attending parkruns.

parkrun truly makes the world smaller and brings people and communities together.

Next time I’m in Durban I might just join that parkrun conga line.