Midleton 5k parkrun is 1-year old

The Midleton 5k parkrun started on the 2nd of February 2025 and it is now one year old! The numbers are shown in the chart above and it really has been a great success. Let's have a look at some stats.

a) The first event had 636 finishers.

b) There were 51 events in the first year and the average number of finishers per week for the full year was 165.

c) The most obvious aspect of the chart is the large initial surge in numbers. If we take out the first four events, we get an average of almost 147 for the rest.

d) Looking at the chart, it seems to take about 8 weeks for the novelty factor to wear off so if we ignore those first 8-weeks then we get an average of about 140. This could probably be considered to be what the real average is for the event at present. 

e) Looking back at my own stats, I put up two posts on the blog about this parkrun starting... one in Dec of 2024 and one in Jan of 2025. The associated posts I put up on the Running in Cork Facebook page got about 43,000 and 89,600 views respectively. It's obvious that there was a lot of interest in this new event in Midleton.

The 'Surge Problem'... This is a problem facing new 5k parkruns starting up near urban areas.

Parkrun tourism is a thing and some people will travel far and wide to take part in inaugural events. Hence, the huge spike of 636 finishers.

Add to that, you have the novelty factor as people try out a new parkrun for the first time to see what it like. In the case of Midleton, it seems to have taken about 8-weeks for this to end and for the numbers to level off at a more natural level.

Problems... The caveat here is that the Midleton example is a sample size of one but it's a useful template for what other new events would experience.

a) Parking... Can a new event cope with the influx of cars for the inaugural event and the first few weeks?

b) Course capacity... Is the course wide enough to cope with all of those people for the first few weeks? 

c) Volunteers... While experienced volunteers from nearby parkruns are likely to help out with the start of a new parkrun, the core team of any new parkrun are a group of people learning the ropes while the numbers are at their highest.

The big numbers put a lot of stress on the system... timekeepers trying to count all finishers, the person trying hand out all the finish tokens, the funnel person trying to keep everyone in sequence and all of the barcode scanners trying to record everyone.

Solution???... I have heard that some new parkruns try to keep the inaugural event quiet and not to announce it in advance. A small number of local people know about it and they manage to get the first event completed without any big numbers or drama.

It's only a partial solution however as after the inaugural event, the cat is out of the bag and the novelty factor kicks in.

Looking forward, there's talk of a new 5k parkrun in Carrigaline and they are likely to experience some of the same issues as Midleton.

At least these are 'good problems' to have, it would be worse if the numbers were so poor that there weren't enough volunteers for an event to be viable or carry on.