Latest news with #parkrun
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
World's fastest 75-year-old woman: 'Never think that you're too old'
Sarah Roberts is the fastest over-75 woman in history over 800m, 1500m and 3,000m. She started running aged 67 when she was introduced to parkrun while on holiday with her husband in Cape Town in 2017. She now hold a series of world records.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Never think you're too old': Meet the world's fastest 75-year-old woman
Along a sun-dappled canal towpath in picturesque Hertfordshire countryside, a grey-brown bob rises and falls with the effortless bounce of a lithe, spectacled figure gliding her way past dog-walkers and afternoon ramblers. There is a watch – one of those smart-technology devices capable of producing all sorts of unnecessary metrics – on Sarah Roberts's wrist, but she has forgotten to switch it on. Roberts, a grandmother of five, tends not to take note of such things. When she does go for a run – an occurrence of surprising infrequency – she prefers to be guided by feel; distances and times forgotten upon return to her front door. The fastest 75-year-old woman in history – a multiple world champion and world-record holder – possesses no training logbook, no coach and, most intriguingly, almost zero running pedigree for most of her life. Asked by the hastily stretching Guardian journalist – foolishly attempting to keep pace for a few miles – how she is capable of launching straight into a run without any semblance of a warm-up, she reveals she only stretches before races 'so that I don't look unprofessional'. Her Great Britain Masters singlet reveals taut muscles and supple limbs that would never have been employed for their current purpose were it not for a holiday to South Africa eight years ago. Trips there had been a frequent occurrence long before a Cape Town-based friend asked whether Roberts and her husband George would like to join their regular Saturday morning parkrun – the wonderful innovation that welcomes all comers to undertake 5km at whatever pace they choose. Sheltered under trees at the foot of Table Mountain, they savoured this one at no more than a pleasurable amble. The following week they went again, only this time Roberts ran small segments. On their return to their Hertfordshire home, the couple decided to sign up to their local parkrun. For three years, almost every Saturday morning involved a 5km run, with Roberts converting from running novice to regular attendee, whittling her time down from just shy of 30 minutes to less than 23. Just a few weeks off her 70th birthday, she then took a plunge by joining her local athletics club, Dacorum, and signing up for an 800m race at the end of the summer. 'I was discovering I was really quite good,' she explains after our canal run, while sitting in front of an antique mantel clock in a living room adorned with furnishings from decades gone by. 'That made me think I ought to see whether I could do other things, so I put myself in for an 800. I'd never even been on a track before. The gun went and all I knew is I had to go round twice. 'The only other people in the race were either under-17 or under-15, and then there was me, almost 70. These girls just shot off in the distance looking like gazelles and I ran round. I was way last and didn't know what time I'd done, but someone told me it was rather good for my age.' The Covid pandemic dashed almost all running opportunities over the next two years, aside from irregular parkruns when permitted. So, it was not until early 2022 that she was able to contest another 800m, unexpectedly taking the scalp of a multiple global age-group champion in the process. 'Nobody had heard of me or expected me to do anything,' says Roberts. By 2023, she was a double British champion in the 70-74 age group. The following year she won three world titles over 800m, 1500m and 5,000m, before adding four more indoor golds this March. 800m outdoor: 2min 58.12sec800m indoor: 2.57.321,500m outdoor: 6.06.201,500m indoor: 5.58.15Mile outdoor: 6.40.323,000m indoor: 12.28.825,000m outdoor: 22.40.155km road: 21.3310,000m outdoor: 45.59.8110km road: 44.33 Since her birthday last October, she has swept the board of 75+ world records over every track distance from 800m to 10,000m indoors and outdoors, as well as 5km and 10km on the road. Last weekend, she added mile and 10,000m world records to her bulging haul despite less than 90 minutes between races. It is a staggering array of accolades for someone whose running experience never previously extended beyond chasing primary school friends around the playground. Upstairs in their smart detached home, off a hallway lined with photos of their children and grandchildren, sits a room that used to function as an office but is now primarily occupied with Roberts' late-blooming running career. Surrounded by cardboard boxes marked with such mundanities as 'sewing', 'Scrabble' and 'wrapping paper' lie an assortment of athletics paraphernalia, from certificates to printed race results, and photo albums to a frankly overwhelming number of medals. How much does running now occupy Roberts' life, I wonder? 'Only 95%,' says George, joking, who happily travels around the country and abroad to watch his wife of almost 54 years race. By this point, there is an obvious question that needs answering. How on earth does a woman who had never run until she was 67 become the fastest of all time? Despite not taking part in any organised sport beyond the briefest of social netball stints many decades ago, Roberts has always been a keen gym goer. Initially just the odd circuit class here and there during her days working as a solicitor and raising two children; latterly, post-retirement, every day and all conceivable options, from boxing to Zumba, and yoga to legs, bums and tums. A few years ago, when her gym held a contest to see who could hold the longest plank, Roberts, then just shy of her 70th birthday, tapped out victorious after 10 minutes and 15 seconds. Only boredom, and a lack of genuine challengers, made her stop. Recently, while hoovering up world titles in Florida, she was approached by researchers who asked to conduct some tests on her. They found her resting heart rate drops as low as 38 beats per minute and her VO2 max, which measures the body's ability to use oxygen during exercise, is 54 – both comparable to an elite athlete generations younger. She awaits full MRI results, but the radiographer who conducted the scans was instantly stunned by the lack of fat running through her legs. 'I feel fitter than I've ever felt before, which is fantastic,' she says. 'You don't expect to feel that when you're 75.' Her formal running training remains minimal. Other than a track session on Mondays and intervals on Tuesdays, her only other regular outing is the trusty Saturday morning parkrun. The remainder of her fitness is cultivated through those daily gym visits. Remarkably, given her advancing years, she is only getting quicker, so far improving her best times every summer since starting to compete. 'Whatever I'm doing seems to be working,' she says, smiling. Having braved that initial 800m race at an age when most would never consider it, she hopes her story may inspire others. What unknown talents lie dormant, just waiting for a chance to emerge? 'I'd like people to think that they should always try something,' she says. 'You never know what you can do until you try it. Never think you're too old. Give it a go. You will surprise yourself at what you can do if you really try to do something.' Earlier, as we left the towpath and wound our way through the village towards home – one of us sweating considerably more than the other twice his age – two scenarios sprang to mind. One was the thought of what she might achieve with the aid of a properly conceived full-time running regime – a suggestion that Roberts gives short shrift, fully content as she is, with sufficient honours to validate her current approach. The other was what might have been. Given her apparent physiological advantages – and notwithstanding the paucity of middle and long-distance events open to women until the latter decades of the 20th century – does she wonder what she could have accomplished if made aware of her running prowess at a younger age? 'No, I don't,' she says. 'I'm just very grateful that I've discovered it now. I've had a good life and enjoyed whatever I've done in the past. I don't go into what-ifs because all the other factors would have been different anyway. But I'm very happy for the current situation. 'I'm just amazed really. I could always run for a bus, but I never thought I would ever be anywhere near the best in the world. It never would have crossed my mind.'
BBC News
6 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Bob Emmerson, known as 'Mr Northampton parkrun', dies aged 92
A county's running community has mourned the passing of a nonagenarian referred to as "Mr Northampton parkrun".Bob Emmerson, 92, who died on Tuesday, had completed 537 parkruns - primarily at the event hosted at Northampton's racecourse - and had volunteered at a further 53 Bushell, co-event director at Northampton parkrun, said Mr Emmerson was "a huge part of the event" and recently attended the 600th race at the site on 17 said: "People turned up [to Northampton parkrun] because they wanted to see and speak to Bob. He really inspired and encouraged parkrunners, especially those taking part for the first time". Mr Emmerson, from Walgrave, Northamptonshire, started taking part in 2012, when he was runner - who kept active despite having both of his hips resurfaced - completed 528 editions of the Northampton event, but had also ran at others in Northamptonshire at Brixworth Country Park, Daventry and Kettering, plus ones in Darlington, County Durham, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, and Bushy Park in London, where the first parkrun took place. In a post on Facebook, Northampton parkrun said Mr Emmerson "quite simply was Mr Northampton parkrun".The event also confirmed its intention to "pay our respects" to Mr Emmerson, who passed away in his sleep, at future editions of the Northampton Emmerson was rarely seen at parkrun with anything other than a distinctive green Silverstone 10k 30th anniversary a post of their own reflecting the "truly sad news", the Silverstone Grand Prix 10k race said: "He appears in the top 10 times in five age categories M65 (three times), M75, M80, M85, and incredibly, last year he achieved his goal by completing the race and setting a M90 age record." Mr Emmerson previously told the BBC he was a "proper, serious, ultra-runner" in his younger days, completing ultradistance and 24-hour races, and his fastest time for a marathon was two hours, 40 minutes and 25 said he enjoyed parkrun as it was a "friendly get-together"."I must have made hundreds of new friends since I've done the parkrun," he added. The mass participation 5km run celebrated its 20th anniversary last year after it was started by 13 participants in London. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
From TikTok to the track: Gen Z are driving running's third great boom
There are 349,000 more runners in England in 2024 compared to 2023 and the rise has almost entirely been fuelled by women. There are 349,000 more runners in England in 2024 compared to 2023 and the rise has almost entirely been fuelled by women. Photograph: Moof/Getty Images/Image Source Hear that sound? It is the fingertaps of Gen Z scrolling through Instagram reels and TikToks. The pings of card readers as more stylish gear leaves the shelves. The drumbeat of cushioned soles on pavements up and down the country. But, most of all, it is the noise of the jaws of the smartest people in sport crashing to the floor. Because, suddenly and entirely unexpectedly, we are in the third great running boom, one that almost nobody saw coming and powered almost entirely by Gen Z, particularly women. 'You go back to the first boom in the 1970s and 80s and there was no real diversity: it was all thin, skinny, white guys in very tight shorts,' says Hugh Brasher, the event director of the London Marathon. The second boom? That, he says, came after Paula Radcliffe broke the world marathon record in 2003, leading to a big jump in women taking up running, before parkrun grew the numbers again. Advertisement 'You look now and it really is all ethnicities and demographics,' Brasher says. 'This explosion – and it really is an explosion – has been brilliant to see. I wish that any of us could say we created it, like Netflix and Drive to Survive, or even saw it coming. But we didn't. It's been an organic explosion.' The numbers are staggering. More than 1.1 million have entered the ballot for the 2026 London Marathon – not only a world record but nearly double the figure from two years ago. Strikingly, for the first time, the male/female split is almost 50/50. The race is also getting younger: more than a third of UK entries are aged from 18 to 29 years old. So what is going on? Part of it is a happy confluence of circumstances. Running has always been cheap and accessible. Now it is also fashionable. But dig a little deeper, and there are some interesting things going on. Last month, for instance, Sport England found that while there were 349,000 more runners in England in 2024 compared to 2023 that rise was almost entirely fuelled by women. Advertisement 'Part of the rise is because brands have cottoned on to the fact that women are willing to spend a lot of money on products that work better and look nicer,' says Lee Glandorf, a marketer who works with sports brands on their editorial strategy and writes a Substack on sport and fashion. 'Lululemon, in particular, led the way and did a lot of the work to make running fashionable. 'But I also know that for a long time, Hoka's internal motto was 'win with women'. They put a lot of energy into making running shoes fashionable and comfortable for women. They seeded a lot of influencers and they did a lot of messaging around soft wins, the idea it is OK to run slowly and that winning can be achieved in different ways.' While the traditional running world may sneer, Glandorf says influencers have played a significant part. 'This huge ecosystem of female creators definitely brings in younger women,' she says. 'Mostly they are not pro athletes. Instead the younger generation is being inspired by people who look like them or have a similar background.' There is one myth worth shattering, however. It was not the pandemic that led to the spike in running. That, says Brasher, only came in 2023. But Covid‑19 did play a part. 'We used to have to go into the office five days a week,' he says. And we socialised through work. A lot of that cohesion has gone and therefore it needs to be replaced. People want to be together in a community they enjoy and running has myriad diverse communities.' Advertisement That is particularly true of Gen Z, which has been hit harder than most. Research also shows Gen Z drinks much less than previous generations and is more aware of mental health. 'The research is now showing that running is better than taking a pill to help with depression,' Brasher says. Another factor behind the boom is the explosion in a new breed of running clubs or 'crews', bringing people together in a more communal way. In the buildup to the London Marathon, the sports brand Tracksmith had up to 400 runners gather outside its shop for its Sunday morning long runs with pacers running between 6.45 minute- and 12-minute miles. 'The growth over the past two years has been crazy,' says Tracksmith's community leader, Amrit Ghatora. 'But there are so many crews now, from black trail runners to Asian running groups, so there really is something for everyone. If you come to a run club for the first time, it can be an intimidating experience. But we do everything to ensure that no one feels left out and it is a really enjoyable experience.' This latest running boom has not yet had an impact on elite track and field. Nick Pearson, who was formerly in charge of parkrun and now is chief executive of the talent agency Forte management, says that does not matter. 'There are some people who say this boom won't last, but I disagree. The direction of travel is upwards and you've still got some really significant pockets, particularly in some cultural female groups, that can be unlocked into running. 'And why would it go away? It's free. It's unbelievably accessible. It's cheap. Anyone can do it. And the super boost behind this latest boom is Gen Z. They socialise differently. They look for experiences differently and right now, we've just got this perfect storm going on.'
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From TikTok to the track: Gen Z are driving running's third great boom
Hear that sound? It is the fingertaps of Gen Z scrolling through Instagram reels and TikToks. The pings of card readers as more stylish gear leaves the shelves. The drumbeat of cushioned soles on pavements up and down the country. But, most of all, it is the noise of the jaws of the smartest people in sport crashing to the floor. Because, suddenly and entirely unexpectedly, we are in the third great running boom, one that almost nobody saw coming and powered almost entirely by Gen Z, particularly women. 'You go back to the first boom in the 1970s and 80s and there was no real diversity: it was all thin, skinny, white guys in very tight shorts,' says Hugh Brasher, the event director of the London Marathon. The second boom? That, he says, came after Paula Radcliffe broke the world marathon record in 2003, leading to a big jump in women taking up running, before parkrun grew the numbers again. 'You look now and it really is all ethnicities and demographics,' Brasher says. 'This explosion – and it really is an explosion – has been brilliant to see. I wish that any of us could say we created it, like Netflix and Drive to Survive, or even saw it coming. But we didn't. It's been an organic explosion.' The numbers are staggering. More than 1.1 million have entered the ballot for the 2026 London Marathon – not only a world record but nearly double the figure from two years ago. Strikingly, for the first time, the male/female split is almost 50/50. The race is also getting younger: more than a third of UK entries are aged from 18 to 29 years old. So what is going on? Part of it is a happy confluence of circumstances. Running has always been cheap and accessible. Now it is also fashionable. But dig a little deeper, and there are some interesting things going on. Last month, for instance, Sport England found that while there were 349,000 more runners in England in 2024 compared to 2023 that rise was almost entirely fuelled by women. 'Part of the rise is because brands have cottoned on to the fact that women are willing to spend a lot of money on products that work better and look nicer,' says Lee Glandorf, a marketer who works with sports brands on their editorial strategy and writes a Substack on sport and fashion. 'Lululemon, in particular, led the way and did a lot of the work to make running fashionable. 'But I also know that for a long time, Hoka's internal motto was 'win with women'. They put a lot of energy into making running shoes fashionable and comfortable for women. They seeded a lot of influencers and they did a lot of messaging around soft wins, the idea it is OK to run slowly and that winning can be achieved in different ways.' While the traditional running world may sneer, Glandorf says influencers have played a significant part. 'This huge ecosystem of female creators definitely brings in younger women,' she says. 'Mostly they are not pro athletes. Instead the younger generation is being inspired by people who look like them or have a similar background.' There is one myth worth shattering, however. It was not the pandemic that led to the spike in running. That, says Brasher, only came in 2023. But Covid‑19 did play a part. 'We used to have to go into the office five days a week,' he says. And we socialised through work. A lot of that cohesion has gone and therefore it needs to be replaced. People want to be together in a community they enjoy and running has myriad diverse communities.' That is particularly true of Gen Z, which has been hit harder than most. Research also shows Gen Z drinks much less than previous generations and is more aware of mental health. 'The research is now showing that running is better than taking a pill to help with depression,' Brasher says. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Another factor behind the boom is the explosion in a new breed of running clubs or 'crews', bringing people together in a more communal way. In the buildup to the London Marathon, the sports brand Tracksmith had up to 400 runners gather outside its shop for its Sunday morning long runs with pacers running between 6.45 minute- and 12-minute miles. 'The growth over the past two years has been crazy,' says Tracksmith's community leader, Amrit Ghatora. 'But there are so many crews now, from black trail runners to Asian running groups, so there really is something for everyone. If you come to a run club for the first time, it can be an intimidating experience. But we do everything to ensure that no one feels left out and it is a really enjoyable experience.' This latest running boom has not yet had an impact on elite track and field. Nick Pearson, who was formerly in charge of parkrun and now is chief executive of the talent agency Forte management, says that does not matter. 'There are some people who say this boom won't last, but I disagree. The direction of travel is upwards and you've still got some really significant pockets, particularly in some cultural female groups, that can be unlocked into running. 'And why would it go away? It's free. It's unbelievably accessible. It's cheap. Anyone can do it. And the super boost behind this latest boom is Gen Z. They socialise differently. They look for experiences differently and right now, we've just got this perfect storm going on.'
