Paul Sinton-Hewitt, founder of parkrun

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Paul Sinton-Hewitt is the founder of parkrun, a running event which has over 10 million registered participants in 23 countries, including six million in the UK. Paul was born in 1960, the youngest of three children to James and Mary Sinton-Hewitt and grew up in South Africa. At the age of five, shortly after his mother left Paul’s father, he and his siblings were committed into care by their dad. They stayed in a children’s home for three years until their father collected them again only to transfer them to a boarding school in Johannesburg. They were unhappy years for Paul who, as one of the youngest and smallest boys, was mercilessly bullied by the other children. It was at his next boarding school where Paul discovered he was a very good distance runner. Following two years of compulsory military service and a whirlwind wedding, Paul found employment as a junior programmer in the banking sector in the early 1980s. As his career progressed, his marriage fell apart, and by the mid-1990s, he was living in England as a divorced father of two. Things came to a head in 2004. After losing his job and being sidelined from running by injury, he came up with the idea for parkrun: a free, weekly 5-kilometre run in his local park, open to everyone. It was a way to stay connected to the sport he loved. Thirteen people turned up to the first event at Bushy Park in Richmond in October 2004. Twenty-two years later, parkrun celebrated its one millionth event in June 2026. Presenter: Lauren Laverne  Producer: Tom Alban and Christine Pawlowsky