90-year-old ‘overwhelmed’ to have completed 500th park run, 11 years on from his first

A 90-year-old man says he was “overwhelmed” to have completed his 500th park run in Northampton, 11 years on from his first.

Bob Emmerson reached the milestone on Saturday (September 2) and was met with hundreds of people cheering him on as he crossed the finish line.

The Newcastle-born 90-year-old first started running aged 15 and says he “showed promise” when he kept it up during his army service in Egypt at 18 years old.

Having left the army and landed a job working on Saturdays, Bob did not run for a long time because of his schedule – until he was 45, changed his line of work and had weekends off.

Bob took part in an annual work run and after finishing near the front, he took up running as a hobby and went on to complete his first London Marathon.

It went from strength to strength for Bob when he even ran as far as the 53 miles between London and Brighton.

Bob kept at his passion until he was around 75 years old and had both his hips resurfaced.

He did not go on many runs for around the next four years, until his daughter told him about a park run that had been newly set up in Northampton.

Aged 79, Bob attended the fifth park run to be held at the Racecourse – and as he would say himself, the rest is history.

Celebrations have been held for each milestone he has reached, but the pandemic put a spanner in the works just as Bob was about to reach 400 park runs.

It took 18 months for Bob to run his 400th, but it put him back on track to achieving the 500 mark he had always aspired for.

“I would have liked to have reached 500 by 90 years old,” Bob told this newspaper. “I said that when I got to 500 I’d stop, but I changed my mind.

“I’ve made too many friends and couldn’t bear to lie in bed on a Saturday morning and think of everyone running.”

The park run takes Bob around 50 minutes to complete and on Saturday (September 2), he was met with hundreds of people waiting to congratulate him on the milestone – one of which was his wife of almost 70 years.

Bob said: “I was overwhelmed with all those people cheering me on. I know I’m not a proper runner now, I jog a bit, I walk a bit. I get around and that’s what counts.”

More than 400 people ran the park run this weekend and around half stayed at the end to watch Bob cross the finish line.

“I felt overwhelmed with friendship,” said the 90-year-old.

Despite going against his plan to pack in the park runs having reached his target, Bob is not putting pressure on himself to reach 600.

“I’m not going to do 600 but who can tell,” he said. “You never know. Never say never. As long as I live, I shall be doing a bit of exercise.”