By Shelby Brooks
For 400 Saturday mornings, enthusiastic parkrunners have woken up early to get active around Berwick Springs Lake.
As Victoria’s fourth-longest operating group, Berwick Springs Parkrun celebrated the impressive milestone event on Saturday 13 August with 30 personal bests and many friendly smiles.
Berwick Springs Parkrun was first established in October 2013 and has hosted thousands of people each Saturday morning for a free, timed walk or run.
Founding Berwick Springs parkrunners Martin Klusacek, Jo Pratt, Martin Turner, Alan White, Kathy C and Jason Turner completed their run on Saturday, celebrating their involvement since the beginning.
Co-event director Jason Mittra said the 400th event of the club was a fantastic day of good weather and happy vibes.
“We were blessed with good weather. It couldn’t have been any more perfect,” Jason said.
“We’re also approaching our ninth birthday. We missed out on a couple of years due to Covid-19.”
Parkrun offers a free, timed 5km run or walk every Saturday at more than 100 locations across Victoria.
“It’s a very community-minded group which runs on volunteers to ensure it remains free,” Jason said.
“We have the technology for everyone who wants to run to get a barcode to time their runs, and each week they can come back and try to get a better time.
“We also have people who are happy to walk.”
On Saturday, 173 people crossed the finish line, with the fastest time run at 16.53min, while the finish person completed the course in 59.43min.
“The exciting thing is as Parkrun gets older, the finish times get slower which means more people are turning up to walk,” Jason said.
“We have people pushing prams and walking dogs along with our fast runners.”
Berwick Springs Parkrun has become a “feeder event”, spawning the establishment of other clubs in Casey and Cardinia.
Since it began nine years ago, Berwick Springs Parkrun has had 831 volunteers, 7245 finishers and 11080 personal bests.
Jason said Parkrun was for everyone and always aimed to be inclusive and welcoming.
“I didn’t consider myself a runner,” Jason said.
“A friend told me about Parkrun at a barbecue – my son wanted a medal for finishing a race.
“I just turned up and was immediately welcomed. It’s very inclusive.”
