General News
14 February, 2025
Parkrun reaches milestones
The Goldfields Reservoir parkrun recently celebrated two significant milestones, with Janette McQueen and Barry Parsons completing their 150th and 100th parkrun respectively.
Starting on October 26, 2019, the Goldfields Reservoir parkrun is a free community event encouraging residents and visitors to begin their weekend with a five-kilometre walk, jog, or run.
Since her first parkrun on November 9, 2019, Ms McQueen has been a regular on the track, walking her way to 150 park runs at the event’s 210th iteration.
Always dedicated to the event, Ms McQueen has volunteered numerous times, taking on many roles including timekeeper, barcode scanner, tail walker, and handing out finish tokens.
While the physical benefits of parkrun are a big plus, Ms McQueen said the social and welcoming environment of the event has kept her involved for six years.
“What’s more important to me is the social aspect, it’s an easy way to exercise and you are just competing against yourself to get your results weekly,” she said.
“It’s a friendly atmosphere, everyone can have a go regardless of their ability.
“You get to know everybody by name and congratulate them as they pass you.
“I recommend it because you get your exercise done early in the weekend and you have the rest of the weekend to yourself. It’s also a great way to make friends and have fun at the same time.”
A weekend before Ms McQueen’s achievement, Mr Parsons brought up his ton, with 91 park runs completed at the Goldfields Reservoir.
Similarly to Ms McQueen, Mr Parsons has volunteered 85 times, including 50 times as a run director.
“I was always interested in running with either orienteering or triathlons and I remember doing my first one in Melbourne and thinking ‘this is good fun, we need to do it in Maryborough’,” Mr Parsons said.
“The big plus of parkrun is it’s every Saturday and it doesn’t cost anything if you are doing some training and you miss out on one Saturday it doesn’t matter because the next Saturday it’s here.
“You see people come out to Goldfields Reservoir and they realise they can build up to doing the five kilometres.
“Because of the recording system, they see their improvements week on week and it’s great to see people enjoy that.”
Mr Parsons echoed Ms McQueen’s comments, saying the social environment of parkrun is what makes it so special.
“It’s not competitive, it’s very much social, people will decide to walk around as a pair and talk as they are walking around,” he said.
“One of the wonderful things is it’s Australia-wide, so for travelling it’s wonderful because you can go along and you’ve immediately got something in common with the people there.
“A quarter of participants will go back to the Bull and Mouth and sit around and have a cup of coffee and there is a lot of really wonderful networking.”
Goldfields Reservoir parkrun volunteer Debbie Macer, who recently surpassed 100 park runs herself, said the milestones display the dedication of Ms McQueen and Mr Parsons and hopes it encourages others to participate.
“It’s an accomplishment and an achievement — I was really excited to do 100 events because it means I have done 500 km,” she said.
“It’s lovely to see people increase their fitness — physical health is so important and it relates to their mental health and you have got the social aspect as well.
“We had people who couldn’t run one lap of the Goldfields Reservoir and are now running half-marathons and fun runs.
“There are no age barriers, people push kids in their prams, we have even had someone in a wheelchair going around.”
The Goldfields Reservoir parkrun is held every Saturday at 8 am. For more information, visit www.park run.com.au/goldfieldsreservoir