David Stow was part of the first Maitland Parkrun.
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Twelve months on and the 63-year-old is still there most weeks.
The weekly event will celebrate its first birthday at Walka Water Works on Saturday morning with the participation record of 495 expected to be challenged.
Stow will be there once again this weekend and he rates the Maitland Parkrun as his favourite of the eight which now exist around the Hunter.
“I’ve done a few different Parkruns, but Maitland is my favourite,” the mine technician said.
“It is close to home and has a good feel about it.”
The free, timed five-kilometre run, held at the same time each week in parks around the world, has grown in popularity.
Stow, who has completed 38 City2Surf races and has run long distance for the best part of four decades, said he enjoyed the Parkrun concept.
“It is done by volunteers, there aren’t to many people, they are normally beautiful places to run and it doesn’t change each week,” he said.
“People can add it to their training as well.”
There have been 14,540 individual runs in Maitland covering 72,700 kilometres during the past year.
Start time is at 8am.