Worcester parkrun expect numbers to stay high through January after record breaking Christmas Day event
1,000 people turned out to complete the 5k course on Christmas Day
Organisers of a parkrun in Worcester say they tend to see a rise in the number of people taking part in their events in the new year following people's resolutions to get fitter.
Worcester parkrun saw 1,000 people run the 5k course, beating their previous best of 750, and claim to be one of only 11 parkruns with an attendance in four figures for the day.
On New Year's Day, Worcester Pitchcroft also saw over 500 finishers, with over 2,500 people in total taking part across four events at the two tracks between Christmas and new year.
Event director Richard Ralphs says they are used to seeing a rise in numbers at the start of a new year and expect it to be the same this time around.
He said: "There's a definite increase in January and February of people participating in parkruns across the two events.
"We see the numbers go up by about a hundred, but then it can start to tail off as people's resolutions wear thin."
Due to the volume of runners turning up for the Christmas Day event, organisers ended up using raffle tickets to keep track of all those who had taken part.
Richard says it was incredible to see so many people turn up.
"The reaction when we saw all the people coming was just great, bring it on," he said.
"Christmas Day parkrun is usually a little bit bigger as there's lots of people visiting families and other ones are closed, so we were expecting a bit of a bigger one around 700, 750.
"There was Santa hats, Santa suits, there was even someone dressed as a dinosaur running around at one point, people were having a really good time."
Parkruns take place every Saturday across the country at 9am.