Trentham Gardens parkrun celebrates three years since launch
The Trentham Gardens parkrun has become a weekly staple for many and celebrated its third anniversary over the weekend.
The 5k event around the grounds of Trentham's Italian gardens and lake has grown to a peak of just over 1000 participants.
Since 2022 eager runners, joggers and walkers from across the country have traveled to join hundreds of Stokies on their weekly outing around the historic gardens.
Paul Ball, event director at Trentham Gardens parkrun, said: "We've gone from averaging between five and six hundred in the first year to more like seven or eight hundred now and we've topped 1000 a couple of times now.
"Last week was the second highest turnout we've ever had at 1070 - it's a lot of people!
"It's a difficult course because it's a single lap and we have a lot of runners which means we need a higher number of volunteers."
Paul added: "People travel to different parkruns around the country so they make a weekend around a parkrun and here every week around a quarter of the participants are tourists and they love Trentham.
"The feedback from people is that this is a beautiful location and that means it is gathering momentum.
"We're thankful to Trentham Gardens for allowing it as they are letting 1000 people get in for free for up to an hour every Saturday morning, so it's a big positive for people but also fantastic for the shopping village."
At the latest event there were 63 first time tourists out of the 898 people who finished the course.
Participants were joined by Dame Kelly Holmes in November 2022 and runners have visited from as far afield as New Zealand after connecting on social media.
Jon Land, a run director at Trentham Gardens parkrun said: "There is another parkrun in New Zealand called Trentham Memorial and people were tagging the wrong account on Twitter so we were receiving messages for people to volunteer at each other's parkrun.
"It was funny at first as we joked it was quite a long flight for people to fly to volunteer but in the end a couple of the run directors from New Zealand came over to see us.
"I've only been involved in running for the last six years but parkrun is so inclusive that it just gets you into it.
"The idea is to get people moving so it's always nice when walkers progress to being runners.
"It is literally for everybody, you don't need to have any experience or come with anybody - just register online for a barcode."
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