CHIPPING Sodbury parkrun officially broke their attendance record at the first event of the year, with over 500 people, with some runners wearing green for a special reason.

The parkrun is an event that takes place all over the world at 9am on Saturday mornings

It includes runners taking on a 5km route, providing an opportunity for people to get fit for free.

The event in Sodbury takes place at the Ridings Playing Fields every week and usually attracts over 300 people.

However a combination of its growing popularity and people looking to get fit to start 2020 saw the attendance record smashed.

The original record of 531 was set in February of last year, with 547 taking part in the run on Saturday, January 4.

Andy Airey, one of the run directors at Sodbury said: “Saturday saw a record attendance of 547 on January 4 up on the previous highest attendance in late February.

“A large part of this rise is due to resolutions from new participants and runners and walkers returning.

“In the UK nearly 200,000 took part in 679 different events.

“46,815 people completed their first parkrun in one of the 21 countries in the world which now has over 1600 events every Saturday.

“Chipping Sodbury are expecting over 500 runners again for most of January and February even with the new events that started in the region in 2019.”

Runners were also invited to wear something green in memory of Alex McCarthy who would have been 16 on the day.

Alex died before Christmas 2017, after a brain tumour was found.

A number of runners wore something green in memory of him, with a run report from the event saying: “I would also like to give a special thank you to everyone that managed to find something green to wear in memory of Alex McCarthy, I know it meant a massive amount to his family on such a difficult day.”

Chipping Sodbury Parkrun celebrates its 6th birthday and 300th event at the end of February.