Bathurst parkrun smashes attendance record on World Athletics Cross Country weekend

A total of 511 people attended the weekly five kilometre run, with numbers greatly bolstered by the World Athletics Cross Country Championship taking place over February 17 to 19 at Mount Panorama.

That number greatly eclipsed the previous best attendance of 332 that came on the same weekend of last October's Mount Panorama Punish.

The latest edition saw 273 people trying out the Bathurst parkrun course for the first time.

Unsurprisingly, those numbers led to a large number of fast times.

Recent ACT Open Championships 1,500m seventh place finisher Daniel Dreher led the way with his parkrun personal best time of 15 minutes and 43 seconds.

The 2022 Mount Panorama Punish champion Harrison McGill (15:44) finished second, ahead of Australian 2012 London Olympics marathon competitor Martin Dent (15:45).

Nine runners ran a sub-16 time while 96 runners would finish below the 20 minute barrier.

Lauren Reid (17:59) was the first woman across the line.

Bathurst parkrun co-ordinator Jenn Arnold always expected strong numbers on Saturday but was left staggered by the final turnout.

"It was a brilliant opportunity for our runners to mix with some really fast people. It was just stunning," she said.

"We never expected that many. We expected to have a bit of a swollen field, maybe another 100 or so, but to have more than double our usual field was spectacular to watch.

"We do a first timers brief for people who haven't been at the run before, and we had 274 first timers, which is more than what our usual entire parkrun field is. I had to use a microphone and loudspeaker to do that brief, which would normally have half a dozen people."

Even with a wall of fast times being recorded in Saturday's event the Bathurst parkrun record has remained in local hands.

Dreher finished seven seconds off Brandon Martin's record of 15:36 that was set back in July 2021.

On Saturday morning Martin was busy competing in the relay support event at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships at Mount Panorama.

Arnold, who was volunteering at the championships, delivered the good news.

"We headed straight from parkrun to Mount Panorama where Miller [Rivett], Max [Martinez], Brandon and Aaron were racing in [Mount Panorama] Punish shirts for us," she said.

"Just before they raced I let Brandon Martin know that his record still stood, and that put a big grin on his face."

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