There’s a New Parkrun World Record

After 11 years of the record standing the parkrun world record set by our very own Andy Baddeley has been broken. 

Andy Butchart, 31, finished the Silverknowes parkrun in Edinburgh in a time of 13 minutes 45 seconds, breaking Baddeley’s record that has stood since August 2012 by just three seconds. 

The similarities between the two record-setters are pretty striking with both Andy Bs having competed in two Olympic games. With Andy Baddely competing in London and Beijing and Andy Butchart at the Rio and Tokyo games. 

We caught up with Andy Baddeley in the office to get his thoughts on his record finally being broken: “During my professional running career I never thought one of my fondest moments would be at 9am in a park with a thousand strangers, but looking back on that day always makes me smile. I trained in Bushy Park almost every day for several years, so it felt like home.”

He added: “I’ve rarely felt such overwhelming positivity and can’t believe I managed to cling on to the record for almost 11 years! It’s pretty cool that the record has gone to another Andy B – and a two-time Olympic 5,000m finalist at that!”

Unlike the men’s parkrun record the women’s record has been changing hands a lot in the last 12 months with the current record being set last Christmas by Melissa Courtney-Bryant in a time of 15:31 only three weeks after a new record had been set. So will we see another men’s record in the coming weeks?

How did Andy react on our podcast about the new record? See the clip below.

Should our Andy dust off his parkrun barcode and give it another go? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: Andy Butchart (SportsShoes)