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Manfred and his wife Barbara were visiting their children, who live in the area, to celebrate their grandchild’s 13th birthday.
Being a ‘tourist parkrunner’, the milestone birthday, celebrating their first teenage grandchild, happily coincided with this milestone parkrun for him. For those who don’t know, parkrun is a free, 5km community event that takes place every Saturday morning, where you can walk, jog, run, volunteer, or spectate.
It takes place in 22 countries around the world, with 228 parkrun events currently around South Africa and more locations constantly being added. Bruce Fordyce is the president of parkrun in South Africa. Manfred says he was never big on running but was rather always chasing a ball – be it on the soccer, cricket, or hockey field. Nowadays, it is on the golf course where he is part of Kingswood’s Wednesday morning social group, which he has been doing for eight years
Even without a ball to chase, Manfred is passionate about parkrun, as he says, ‘don’t call me before 10:00 on a Saturday.’ He has put in 12 years of dedication to achieve his 500th parkrun. His journey started in 2014 at Delta Park, Johannesburg. Coincidentally, this was also where the first parkrun event in the country launched in November 2011.
He went with his daughter and ‘got hooked’. Manfred and his wife Barbara are avid tourists, and they use parkrun events and challenges to plan their travels. As he says, ‘parkrun takes you places you wouldn’t normally go.’ There is an app available that tracks a parkrunner’s progress, statistics and challenges, like tourist events and letter and name challenges.
He has already completed 108 tourist events – 107 in South Africa and 1 in Italy – and has done all the letters of the alphabet bar Q and X. Barbara steps in as photographer and, when required, as a volunteer at events. He did a parkrun in Upington, where the event was almost cancelled because they didn’t have a timekeeper. Barbara stepped in to do the timekeeping, and Manfred volunteered as photographer on his run. He has also volunteered around 84 times during his parkrun journey.
Family affair.
Manfred and Barbara have two daughters in Johannesburg and one in Hoedspruit. As mentioned, it was one of his daughters who got him hooked on parkrun. He proudly shares that their seven-year-old grandson, Devereux, recently completed the Hoedspruit parkrun in just over 42 minutes.
That said, Manfred insists that parkrun is not a competition – ‘you are not there to win; nowadays I don’t run anymore, I only walk’ – and he is very enthusiastic about people joining the parkrun. ‘Even if you just walk, you are never last, as there is always a tail-walker to guide everyone home.’ Living in Kingswood, with its numerous safe hiking trails, is ideal for keeping fit for parkrun.
More milestones
Competition or not, we are sure that Manfred will continue to add to his 500th parkrun achievement. He plans on going to East London next, and then also has eight more parkruns in the Cape Town area and the West Coast on his itinerary. He jokes that ‘touring around parkrun is fun; we get to do the event and then explore the surrounds – and the wine farms.’
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Amid all the events and touring, Manfred and Barbara still call Kingswood home, and we are very proud of this inspiring member of our community.
