By NICK RIDLEY 

Parkrun events are creating friendships and getting residents outside and active instead of spending all their time indoors. 

More than 60 participants ran, jogged or walked a Wimmera River parkrun course in Horsham from Sawyer Park on Saturday.

Runner Michael White celebrated his 50th parkrun during the event.

The top runners on Saturday were Owen Todd with a time of 18.46 minutes, Mark Hallam, 19.21 minutes, Patrick White, 20.27 minutes and Stephen Lang, 21.18 minutes.

Wimmera River parkrun was established in August, 2018. 

Since then, 1558 participants have completed 9689 parkruns, covering 48,445 kilometres. 

To ensure the success of the event, 179 individuals have volunteered 1029 times.

Organiser Andrew Sostheim said parkrun had a turbulent start with COVID-19, but had created friendships.

He said during pre-Covid times there were about 80 to 90 people who attended the event, but since then the numbers had dropped to about 40 to 60 runners. 

“There are a lot of people who join in and start off as walkers and progress to jogging or running,” he said. 

Mr Sostheim said he enjoyed volunteering and loved the community engagement. 

“There are a lot of people who turn up who are not involved with other community groups, such as football or netball, and it gives them some real engagement,” he said. 

“There have been a lot of friendships made and it’s open to all ages.

“We get elderly women who walk and might drag their husbands along and they realise how good it is.”