parkrun events to be "Born in the USA"

In the UK we are blessed with parkrun events in most corners of the country. I can't put my finger on the precise number, but if my memory serves me correctly, it must be in the region of 170 events.

In Australia there are also a significant number. It's 18 and counting if I remember rightly.

However, over in the USA at present it is just the one parkrun event. Livonia parkrun currently stands alone as the only active parkrun event in the USA. But there is great news for parkrun in the USA as recent announcements and new parkrun event facebook pages are popping up all over the place.

I believe that the current intentions are for new parkrun events to start in each of these locations at some point during 2013:
Atlanta
Chicago
Houston
Orlando - great for many parkrunners for their holidays!
Walnut Creek (I don't know where this is)

I have also read that several more are possible this year and that a total of over 45 US cities have shown interest in starting a parkrun. So the signs are good and parkrun USA could soon show a similar growth pattern to parkrun in the UK and Australia. I think it is fair to say that jumping from 1 event to 46 in one year would be tough going. But from 1 to 6 sounds reasonable. Then next year from 6 to who knows where once the process of starting a new event becomes established.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the amazing growth of parkrun and how one day everywhere in the world could have one (a bit of a stretch I admit) and that if the USA took to parkrun then we would soon be talking about hundreds of thousands of parkrunners each week rather than tens of thousands. Just maybe this is the start of that growth in the USA.

Knowing the size of many US cities I think it would be safe to say that each city could evetually house a number of parkrun events (given suitable venues) and that each event could become huge one day.

So if you are lucky enough to have friends living in the USA and near to one of these new parkrun locations, then why not tell them about parkrun and help parkrun USA grow into the huge family that it is no doubt destined to one day become.

I think that this is a subject we will have to revisit again sometime in the future.