That ritual is called parkun a weekly free timed five kilometre run or walk – usually in a park or other green environment – organised under the auspices of parkrun Australia (the small ‘p’ in parkrun is deliberate and I will use that notation unless at the beginning of a sentence).

Founded in London’s Bushy Park in 2004 it was immediately successful and did not take long to spread across the country and go international.

The first parkrun was launched in Australia at Main Beach on the Gold Coast on April 2, 2011 with 108 runners, including the great Olympian runner Ron Clarke.

Since then it has spread to over 300 locations across the land and almost half a million runners and walkers.

In 2017 the event came to the North West.

Cloncurry couple Denis and Belinda Imhof got the concept up and running in the Curry. I was there for that first event and Cloncurry remains my home parkrun.

It is great to see it has established itself as a regular item on the town’s social calendar and the course around bushlands behind Mary K Park is a lot of fun.

Sadly I missed their first birthday celebrations this week as I had to fly to Brisbane later on the Saturday morning out of Mount Isa.

But I did have time to join in the Mount Isa parkrun, an event which established around Easter this year.

The Mount Isa run starts and finish at the northern end of Tharrapatha Way and is a two lap course, with the first longer lap going down to Alma St and back, and a shorter second lap with a turnaround near Barkly Highway State School.

I was there with around 50 people on what was a very warm morning.

The heat meant my time was two minutes slower than my PB but the camaraderie was just as warm, and everyone there was friendly and giving encouragement to others. That’s what love about it, the sense of community.

My next parkrun goal – apart from always wanting to make a PB – is to attend the one in Doomadgee. They have the north west’s third parkrun and I hope they also spread to other places – Derek Barry