Every Saturday morning across the world hundreds of thousands of joggers start their day with a jog.

parkrun has become a global fitness phenomenon and a Woonona woman, Barbara Hemingway, has just joined a small, celebrated group in Australia having run her 500th parkrun event.

It was a cool, soggy Saturday as Barbara was cheered to the finish line finishing mid field wearing the blue shirt which symbolizes a 500th run.

“We have different coloured shirts to celebrate every parkrun milestone,” said race director Michael Kennedy.

“It’s important that we celebrate people running their tenth, 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500,” he said. “You wear the red shirt for 50 parkruns and black for 100.”

Barbara, 58, is the first member of the Sandon Point Parkrun Club to run 500 events and while most of them were in the Illawarra, she’s also run in many other places including New Zealand and Singapore.

“I’ve run in every Australian state except Western Australia, and we now plan our holidays around parkruns wherever we go,” she said.

It was a friend, Megan Cracknell, who inspired Barbara to join the parkrunning craze.

“We became friends through watching our sons play rugby and I decided to join Megan playing touch footy, But I was so unfit, and I was huffing and puffing after running 10 metres,” Barbara said.

So, in 2013 she ran her first 5km parkrun and since day one she rarely misses a Saturday morning run.

“It’s just wonderful to see how people encourage each other and it’s such a lovely community to be a part of.”

Inspired by people in the Sandon Point group who are still running in their 70s, 80s and 90s, Barbara has no doubt that sometime in the future, maybe around 2035, she’ll be striding out across the finish line in her 100th parkrun.

The parkrun community is growing all the time – but it’s all still based on the simple, basic principles formed from the start: weekly, free, for everyone. Forever.

parkrun fun facts

• The first parkrun took place on 2 October 2004 in London UK where 13 intrepid runners got together; this year marks its 20th anniversary.
• On 2 April 2011, the first Australian parkrun was held at main beach on the Gold Coast, Queensland with 115 participants.
• There are now more than 400 parkrun events in Australia with more than 750,000 participants.
• Parkrun events are also held every Saturday at Helensburgh, Fairy Meadow, North Wollongong and Shellharbour.