South Toowoomba Parkrun celebrates 200-run, 500-volunteer milestones

Two veterans of Toowoomba Parkrun have celebrated significant milestones, clocking 200 runs and 500 volunteer days respectively.

South Toowoomba Parkrun Milestones

South Toowoomba Parkrun has celebrated two significant milestones, with 70-year-old John Gillett completing his 200th run while event director, Robbie Hawkswell completing his 500th volunteering effort.

First arriving in Toowoomba in 2013, there are now six Parkrun groups including more than 1000 runners who take to the pavement every week.

Parkrun South Toowoomba member John Gillett celebrated his 200th run on Saturday and looked back on his time with the group.

“In the old days I was apart of Road Runners and then Parkrun came along and I didn't really pay much attention to it at first,” Dr Gillett said.

“There was a bloke about 20 years younger than me and he was my supervisor in radiation oncology and he used to laugh at me running home as he’d pass on his scooter.

“Wouldn't you know, he took up running and he got really involved in Parkrun. He’d always ring me up and ask if I’d done it yet, so eight months after it started in Queens Park I started running there.”

John Gillett with his family celebrating his son’s 50th run.

Dr Gillett said reaching the milestone hadn’t been without its difficulties, but it was worth every step.

“I had a fracture in my back and was off running for four months and my son said to me ‘hey old man you’re nearly up to 200 you’ve only got two to go and if you wait for a month I’ll come down and do it with you’,” he said.

“With my two sons doing it as well, it is nice to be able to do something with my children.

“It’s such a community thing, there are no boundaries in it, when you are racing you are more racing against yourself.

“Marrying your personal journey with a group activity really keeps you coming back.”

Almost a thousand Toowoomba residents take part in Parkrun every weekend.

Dr Gillett said Parkrun had taken him all over the world but there was no place like home.

“I’d been ask to talk at a conference in England and the club was planning to go to New Zealand and do the half marathon and there was 13 weeks between leaving here and New Zealand,” he said.

“In those 13 weeks I did 13 Parkruns, including Toowoomba, Dalby, Oakey, Melbourne and the original one in London.

“Still to me South Toowoomba is my favourite.

“The official milestone is 250 and that is within reaching point now, if I stay diligent I might be able to get there in two years.”

Robbie Hawkswell has celebrated 500 days of volunteering.

Despite the impressive runners Parkrun would be nothing without their equally impressive volunteers and very few have put in the hours of event co-ordinator Robbie Hawkswell.

A member of Parkrun from the very beginning, Mr Hawkswell has clocked 500 days of volunteering and joined a group of less than six volunteers in Australia to have ever reached that number.

Alongside his volunteering Mr Hawkswell has also run a staggering 470 runs and will aim to hit 500 by next year.

“It feels good to hit the Milestone but I didn’t set out to accomplish it or for the accolade,” he said

“If I can do something to help my community I’ll do it, it’s all part of giving back.

“Back in 2013 I was running for fitness and one of the groups I was in was talking about Parkrun coming to Toowoomba, eventually it started in Toowoomba and I was there day one.

“The whole event is run by volunteers, you need an event director, your run directors, a timekeeper, barcode scanner, marshals on the course and people to hand out tokens, there’s 15 plus volunteers at each event.”

Mr Hawkswell marvelled at how the event had grown over the years.

“When we first started there were a couple of hundred people and to think in 12 years we now have a thousand,” he said.

“It is such a big social thing there are hundreds of people who go out for breakfast at local cafes after, with these events we probably get about 50 tourists a week who come and run and people from Toowoomba travel elsewhere.

“There is no other event like it in the world.”