Dubbo park run turned eight in early July

Dubbo parkrun and its regulars celebrated their 'birthday' on Saturday at Sandy Beach, with more than 250 people taking part in the 5km course along the Macquarie River.

Event organiser Miriam Morris admitted not even the winter weather could have stopped people coming out to walk or run last weekend.

"We started eight years but have had a few cancellations with COVID and other things," she said.

"We had a theme of rural and country, there were a lot of flannies there as well as some ugg boots.

"We like to keep the theme pretty basic if they want to dress up, we had a coffee van and some cake there as well to celebrate."

Along the Tracker Riley path, chalk drawings can regularly be seen and Saturday was no exception, with Morris confirming there was originally supposed to be a few more.

"Normally we do a bit more but just with the rain and things it made it a bit tricky," she said.

"We do chalk drawings normally, even for those who aren't doing park runs and just enjoy the Tracker Riley track."

A total of 257 people took part in the park run on Saturday, with most of those being Dubbo locals.

Now a nationwide concept, Morris said they quite often have people from outside of town going for a run or walk each weekend.

"We had a good turnout there but school holidays are always tricky," she said.

"In some ways, we had a lot of visitors too. Sometimes people come specifically do the park run or incorporate the zoo or are travelling through

"It's a good way to boost tourism because people might stay on Friday night, come to the park run then go grab a coffee or something before leaving.

"Tourists would make up 10 or 20 participants at least each week."

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Dubbo parkrun has boasted more than 1100 volunteers over the past eight years and Morris said they couldn't do it without them.

"We are lucky enough that we have a lot of community groups who volunteer a couple of times a year," she said.

"The Paramount Tennis Club do that, we've got a group of teachers who came and they are volunteering in a couple of weeks.

"Dubbo Touch Association do it as well, we are lucky from that aspect and other weeks we just put a call out."

Anyone interested in taking part in the Dubbo parkrun can find more information on their Facebook page.

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