Cheltenham parkrun

12/09/2026

Cheltenham parkrun event #641 welcomed 704 participants supported by 49 marvellous volunteers.

However you were feeling at the start, we hope you went home uplifted and smiling.

We were joined by lots of tourists including from Tunbridge Wells, London, Weston, Manchester, Tewkesbury, Shrewsbury. A special shout out to our 30 first timers: welcome to the parkrun UK family.

Huge congratulations to our milestoners:

🥳 Jon on his 250th parkrun.

🥳 Our Centurions Tamzin, Catherine and James on their 100th parkruns.

We said thank you to Sayako, a very dear member of our parkrun family who joined us 4 years ago to volunteer for her DofE and went on to volunteer 171 times! (3 out of every 4 Saturdays since starting!) Unflappable and adaptable she always has a smile, even when telling off funnel duckers! All the very best for university Sayako. Come back and see us soon.

Our new double funnel continues to be refined (pics at the end below for reference) - thank you for your patience as we get it right. Thank you to all the runners who joined in to help out with jobs they spotted after finishing today: we really appreciate your support.

To volunteer; to email us your upcoming milestones; to ask for photos to be removed or for any other queries it's [email protected]

10/09/2026

Hello wonderful Cheltenham parkrun family.

Thank you! You stepped up and our roster is FULL 🥳

If you couldn't help this week but would like to be part of our dream team in future weeks please go to https://www.parkrun.org.uk/cheltenham/futureroster/

Here is the volunteer roster for the next few weeks. If you'd like to volunteer at a future event please email [email protected]. To find out more, visit the volunteer page.

05/09/2026

Event #640 at Cheltenham parkrun welcomed 731 participants supported by 54 volunteers.
29 firstimers joined us, their ages ranging from u11 to 80+ ❤️
As usual we had tourists from all over the UK plus from Italy and New Zealand.

Lots of groups joined us, including members of Vegan Runners UK and Scooby Doo and friends. Do put a shout out to your groups in the comments.

Congratulations to our milestoners:
🥳 Zach on his 25th parkrun.
🥳 Ethan on his 50th parkrun
🥳 Centurions Liz, Holly and Koura
🥳 Angus who has volunteered 25 times
🥳 Domenico who reached his 100th volunteering milestone

A huge well done to everyone achieving a personal milestone or PB today.

Thank you to everyone who volunteered before, during or after parkrun including our magnificent pacers.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to develop our double funnel system to reduce queuing across the finish line. Participant numbers are both a delight and a challenge!

To volunteer; to email us your upcoming milestones; to ask for photos removing, or for general queries it's [email protected]

29/08/2026

A HUGE thank you to the 41 volunteers who made parkrun happen for our 530 participants at Cheltenham parkrun event #639.

Though we have been longing for rain we didn't really want it all at once on a Saturday morning! We are very grateful to - and proud of - everyone for coming out today but especially those who welcomed, directed, smiled, cheered, timed and recorded in such wet conditions.
We hope our tourists and the 19 people doing their first ever parkrun enjoyed their time with us today.
A special shout out to our friends from Cheltenham 5k Your Way, Move Against Cancer who inspire amd empower anyone living with or affected by cancer to live an active and fulfilling lifestyle.
Congratulations to our milestone achievers:
🥳 Junior runner Beji doing his 10th parkrun
🥳 Junior runner Archie doing his 2th parkrun
🥳 Paul volunteering for the 100th time
🥳 Lynne doing her 250th parkrun
🥳 Event Director Mitch doing his 400th parkrun🥳 Simon Dye on his 400th parkrun

We had a few issues with results today, not least losing one timekeeper's phone due to the rain. We have done our very best to get you the most accurate results possible. Do contact us if yours seems way out. (Our refund policy is, as always, your money back for today and a free event next week.)

To volunteer; to let us know your upcoming milestones; to ask for photos removed or for any other queries it's [email protected]

28/08/2026

Thank you Cheltenham parkrun family! We now have a full roster 🥳

If you missed out on the opportunity to volunteer this werkend and would like to in the coming weeks, check out https://www.parkrun.org.uk/cheltenham/futureroster to join the fun, get your volunteer credit and earn our eternal gratitude.

25/08/2026

All milestones are important and we love to celebrate them with our parkrun family. Every now and then there is one that stands out. This is Mark’s story:

“My first parkrun was in 2013. I ran it as a one-off in 35.06 and thought it was just OK. Then I met my partner and thanks to her and her daughter, parkrun slowly became my normal Saturday. I did it at a wide variety of speeds, usually dragging reluctant children along too. As a sports' commentator I was very often away on Saturdays so I couldn’t attend as regularly as I’d like to. By 2019 I had achieved a very respectable PB, just in time for COVID to stop us all in our tracks.

When we were able get back in the park I did the Couch to 5k programme. I was at good cross country in my younger days, but as an adult I’m not really a natural runner. The beauty of parkrun was that I could come and join in whatever speed I could manage, so I was able to build up gradually.

With all the interruptions (and 34 times volunteering) I slowly reached 96 parkruns.

Then something totally unexpected happened.
In May 2026 I felt a bit unwell. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and thought it would pass. I had a bit of a pain in my leg, felt a bit tired and just not myself. When I couldn’t walk up the stairs in one go, I gave in and called 111. What followed was quite terrifying. I had a pulmonary embolism.

During the subsequent 10 days in hospital one thought nagged me: I’ll be forever stuck on 96 parkruns.

To my great surprise, my recovery instructions were to “Do what you did before and stop if you get tired.”

For a few weeks I came and watched. Then I volunteered. Then I walked the course again. I know there were a lot of people waiting anxiously at the finish on that first morning.

On Saturday 15th August I finally completed my hundredth parkrun, the one I thought I would never reach – and the one that became the start of my new regime of walking a mile a day.

Without parkrun I would never have had the reason to get back to covering 5km; it was the impetus I needed and quite probably my lifesaver.”

Mark we were all SO proud to see you wear the Centurion outfit. Here’s to many more parkruns.

Thank you for sharing your story.

22/08/2026

Thank you to the 45 volunteers who made event #638 at Cheltenham parkrun such a fantastic morning for our 662 participants.

We welcomed tourists from near and far, including Worcester, Chippenham, Cardiff, Minnesota and California. It was nice to see the Pershore Plums join us today.

A huge welcome also to the 18 people doing their first ever parkrun today. We are always delighted to meet new members of our fabulous parkrun family.

Congratulations to our milestoners:

🥳 Charlie, DofE volunteer, on his 10th session
🥳 Matt and Rob celebrating 600 parkruns.

Congratulations to everyone on PBs and personal milestones today 👏

You will have noticed that we experimented with a double funnel today, to ease congestion at the finish line. This is a work in progress. Huge thanks to everyone for their patience whilst waiting in the funnel and to the runners who stayed on to help us manage the two funnels. We will be looking at a number of options over the coming weeks.

Thank you to Steve for the full run report which you can read here https://www.parkrun.org.uk/cheltenham/news/2026/08/24/report-for-cheltenham-parkrun-638-22-08-2026/

To volunteer; to email us your upcoming milestones; to ask for photos removed or any other queries it's [email protected]

15/08/2026

Event #637 at Cheltenham parkrun welcomed 702 participants supported by 61 volunteers. Our tourists came from every corner of the country plus visitors from Shelley parkrun, Australia.

More than 40 people completed their first ever parkrun and we also welcomed some first time volunteers. Thank you for all your positive feedback; we are so pleased you enjoyed yourselves.
Congratulations to our milestoners:
🥳 U18 parkrunner Ted completing his 50th while visiting from Ashbourne 🥳 Today's centurions Toby, Andy, Mark & Alice
Thank you and well done to Josh, who today completed his Bronze DofE volunteering with us, and to Angus who completed his Silver. 👏

We are grateful to all of our fabulous volunteers who transform an empty space into such a wonderfully welcoming and uplifting start to Saturday and keep parkrun free, for EVERYONE, forever.

To volunteer; to email us your upcoming milstones; to ask for photos to be removed, or any other queries it's [email protected]

To find out more details go to https://www.parkrun.org.uk/cheltenham/

08/08/2026

At Cheltenham parkrun event #636 a magnificent 705 participants crushed their 5km this morning. A team of 45 volunteers made this possible - thank you all!

We said congratulations to David on a double milestone today: 100 times doing our First Timers' Welcome briefing (of his 174 times volunteering) and 250 parkruns. 👏

Congratulations also to Nick on his 50th parkrun today 🥳

30 people joined us for their first ever parkrun, alongside tourists including from Reading, Stoke on Trent, Worcester and Wales.

A reminder that you can find out everything about our parkrun, including a detailed course map at https://www.parkrun.org.uk/cheltenham/

To volunteer, to email us your upcoming milestones or to ask for photos to be removed it's [email protected]

01/08/2026

We're not sure what was in the water this morning, but 817 people felt inspired to join Cheltenham parkrun event #635!

Thank you to our 54 wonderful volunteers whose help before, during and after, made today's event possible

As well as 50 doing their first ever parkrun, we welcomed tourists from Darlington to Donegal, and of course, Australia.

Huge congratulations to Alex who ran with his friends before getting married this afternoon 🎊

Well done also to:

🥳 Oliver completing parkrun today on his 11th birthday 🎂
🥳 Max who completed his DofE Bronze volunteering today 👏

Well done everyone who set a new personal best or milestone today - remembering that completing 5km is an achievement in itself.

To view volunteer opportunities on our future roster go to https://www.parkrun.org.uk/cheltenham/futureroster/
To volunteer, to tell us your upcoming milestones or to ask for photos to be removed its [email protected]