From 524,777 public 5k results, we linked 136,996 observed running journeys across 821 venues (high confidence, same-venue parkrun only) — then grouped them into friendly shapes, from Local Loyalists to Comeback Runners. No leaders, no winners. Just patterns you might recognise.
It's the question runners ask each other in the car park, and the one event teams quietly wonder about every Saturday.
We went looking for an answer in the evidence — not by asking anyone, but by watching how people actually show up. From 524,777 public 5k results, we linked 136,996 observed journeys across 821 venues, using high-confidence, same-venue parkrun linkage only.
Then we grouped those journeys into friendly shapes — from light, occasional appearances to deeper histories and long-gap comebacks. It's descriptive and aggregate. There's no ranking here, and nothing to prescribe. Just shapes you might recognise.
They overlap in places, and they're not a scorecard. Read them as descriptions of how people show up in the linked evidence — each one a running story, with its number attached.
Some runners find one start line and quietly make it theirs. Their journeys cluster tightly around a single familiar venue — the same field, the same marshals, the same faces, week after week. In this linked evidence, that loyalty to one place is one of the clearest shapes we see.
Life gets in the way — months pass, the kit stays in the drawer — and then one Saturday it doesn't. After a long observed gap, these runners simply turn up again. It's one of the most familiar arcs in the data: not a straight line, but a return.
More than a one-off, not yet a habit. A second appearance, maybe a third or fourth — running that's light, occasional, or simply still forming. It's the widest doorway into parkrun, and most journeys pass through it at some point.
Show up enough times and a rhythm starts to show. Five to nine results is enough for a clearer, repeated pattern to emerge — the point where a few scattered Saturdays start to look like a habit taking hold.
A deeper history, written one Saturday at a time. Ten or more results in this linked evidence — the smallest group on the page, and the one with the most behind it. These are journeys that have quietly stacked up over months and years.
Running rarely stays solo for long. Where club evidence is present, runners appear as a meaningful slice of the linked population — averaging 5.0 linked results, compared with 3.6 for those without. We describe what we see, and stop there: it's an association in the evidence, never a claim about cause.
Answer however feels true. We’ll point to the shape it most resembles in the evidence — a description to recognise, never a score, a label or a verdict about what comes next.
Roughly how many times have you run at your usual venue?
Either of these sound like you? (optional)
These shapes are drawn from everyone else's Saturdays — where yours sits among them is the piece only your own history can add.
Underneath the shapes, the rhythm varies — from near-weekly regulars to long, sporadic returns across a wide active span.
Maybe none of these is quite you yet — and that's completely normal.
Some journeys don't fall into a strong shape, and sometimes we simply need more evidence before a pattern becomes clear. It doesn't mean your pattern isn't there. It may just still be forming.
Import your running history or connect a watch, and we’ll place your journey against the shapes on this page. Personal in, aggregate out — always a description, never a prediction.
A name and an email. No card, no fuss.
Your past activity, so we can see your shape.
Keep the picture live as new runs land.
Published by Sports Evidence Lab on 11 June 2026 · every figure traces to a recorded query over identity-linked results · descriptive and unadjusted unless stated · observed, not predicted.