With the London Marathon taking place this weekend, it’s hard not to be inspired when hearing some of the training endeavours of the 40,000+ participants taking part this year. They’ve braved the winter months, pounding the pavements in their fluorescent layers in the mornings before work, in their lunch hours, evenings and weekends and it’s all come down the race this Sunday.
But what does all this running mean for our city?
According to Active Lives data, 77.70% of Londoners take part in physical activity and sport at least twice each month (marginally higher than national average of 77.20%). A large proportion of those are runners, almost 19% of Londoners are in fact going out running at least twice a month – which compared to the percentage of people doing this nationally (15.40%) is considerably higher.
Furthermore, in comparison to a sample of other English cities, the number of city runners was topped only by Newcastle for with London harbouring a higher percentage of runners than Leeds, Birmingham and Greater Manchester.
So, when think you see a lot of runners while you’re walking around the city, you do – a massive 1,315,500 of them each month!
Want to get involved?
parkrun London
parkrun organise free, weekly, 5km timed runs around the world. They are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in.
These events take place in pleasant parkland surroundings and we encourage people of every ability to take part; from those taking their first steps in running to Olympians; from juniors to those with more experience. Lucky for us, there’s 50 parkruns in London, so if you’re inspired by the marathon this weekend, or fancy just lacing up your trainers this Saturday morning, head along to one of the of the parks listed below!
Ally Pally, Barking, Beckenham Place, Beckton, Bedfont Lakes, Bexley, Brockwell, Bromley, Burgess, Bushy Park, Canons Park, Clapham Common, Crane Park, Crystal Palace, Dulwich, Finsbury Park, Fulham Palace, Gladstone, Greenwich, Grovelands, Gunnersbury, Hackney Marshes, Hampstead Heath, Harrow, Harrow Lodge, Highbury Fields, Hilly Fields, Hoblingwell, Kingston Lloyd, Mile End, Northala Fields, Oak Hill, Old Deer Park, Orpington, Osterley, Peckham Rye, Pymmes, Raphael, Richmond Park, Riddlesdown, Roundshaw Downs, South Norwood, Southwark, Tooting Common, Valentines, Victoria Dock, Walthamstow, Wanstead Flats, Wimbledon Common, Wormwood Scrubs.
England Athletics club finder
If you’re looking to get into running more regularly, want to be part of a training group and maybe even compete, England Athletics have a fantastic club finder on their website that allows you to search for clubs in your area. There’s well over 100 clubs listed on there for London, so take a look and get started today!
