Pirrama parkrun #111: The One Where 1,053 People Turned Up

Pirrama parkrun Sydney

Saturday 29 August 2026 | Sydney Marathon Weekend

So, here's the thing about picking a “quiet little parkrun” the morning before Sydney Marathon: there is no such thing.

I’m going to go out on a limb, with absolutely no official knowledge whatsoever, and say quite a few Sydney parkruns had a few extra visitors this morning. Most runners love their Saturday morning ritual and apparently travelling interstate or halfway around the world to run a marathon the next day isn't enough reason to skip it.

We were in Sydney because Kirraleigh was running the Sydney Marathon the next day. Yes, the actual marathon. The one with the Harbour Bridge and 40,000 people.

Also yes, the girl who hates running.

Naturally, the sensible thing to do the day before a marathon is go and run 5km somewhere new.

We are nothing if not sensible.

Pirrama was our pick and our first time there — added bonus for my parkrun tourism. It was also being promoted as a Sydney Marathon shake-out parkrun, so I knew we wouldn't exactly have the harbour to ourselves.

What I didn't know was just how much company we were about to get.

Why Pirrama Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time

Pirrama parkrun Sydney Marathon Shake-Out Run

One of the volunteers told me Pirrama normally gets around 350 people, with roughly 250 visitors and the rest locals. For Sydney Marathon weekend, they were bracing for somewhere around 800–1,000.

Friends, they were not close.

They were wrong in the you're going to need a bigger boat sense.

Getting To Pirrama: A Public Transport Masterclass (Sort Of)

We were staying at Sydney Central Hotel near Central Station, which made getting out to Pirrama reasonably painless — public transport incompetence notwithstanding.

We left our hotel at 6:38 am and reached the station six minutes later. After a slight public transport education — more on that disaster shortly — we caught the light rail to John Street Square.

From John Street Square, Pirrama parkrun is ridiculously easy to find. Get off the light rail, walk up the stairs, turn left, head down the hill towards the water and you're basically there. It's only a couple of hundred metres away and took us less than five minutes to walk.

You don't particularly need Google Maps either. Just follow the suspicious number of people getting off public transport wearing running shoes.

Sydney has a Friday, weekend and public holiday daily public transport cap of $9.65 for adults, covering eligible travel across metro, trains, buses, ferries and light rail.

Considering our plan was parkrun, back to the hotel for breakfast, then out again to explore Sydney, $9.65 for the day was considerably better than Ubering around.

I was very pleased with myself for knowing this.

Confidence: high.

Unfortunately, knowing how to actually use Sydney public transport was apparently a separate skill.

We initially tapped into the train station, were told we actually needed the light rail, and tapped back out. The light rail was right there.

Silly little Queensland me thought, Well, I've already tapped on. I've paid. Off we go.

No, Chooky. No, you have not.

We jumped on the light rail and, because the universe has a sense of humour, fare inspectors got on shortly afterwards. They checked our phones.

“Can you tell me why you didn't pay for this trip?”

Excuse me?

Cue me frantically opening my bank account and showing a complete stranger that money had been taken.

“Look! A dollar came out!”

Apparently this was not the compelling legal defence I thought it was.

Because we'd tapped out of the train station, that trip had ended. The light rail might have been sitting right there, but we needed to tap on again before boarding it.

Thankfully, they could see we weren't exactly running an elaborate public-transport scam. They let us hop off at the next stop, tap on properly and get straight back aboard.

For about 90 seconds, though, I genuinely thought my Sydney Marathon weekend story was going to involve getting busted by transport officers.

Tourist tip from someone who learnt it the embarrassing way: when changing between different modes of transport, make sure you've tapped on for the next service.

Sydney's public transport system does not care about your intentions.

Arriving At Pirrama

Pirrama parkrun Event 111 Crowd

It was a genuinely gorgeous Sydney morning — around 11–12°C at 8 am, mostly clear with light winds. Cool and crisp without being freezing. The sun wasn't belting down and there wasn't a horrible wind coming off the harbour.

Basically, the parkrun weather gods showing off.

The first thing that hit me, though, wasn't the weather.

It was the people.

There were bloody people everywhere.

I'd confidently predicted in my morning recording, “I think we're going to have a couple hundred here this morning.”

That prediction did not age well. At all.

One of the volunteers told me they were expecting somewhere around 800–1,000.

They got more.

Quite a few more.

Pirrama #111 By The Numbers

According to Pirrama parkrun's post-event recap, Event #111 became the largest Pirrama parkrun ever held — and the second-largest parkrun ever held in Australia.

1,053 finishers 🤯

667 first-time visitors to Pirrama

46 people completing their VERY FIRST parkrun

73 PBs

51 volunteers keeping the madness moving

First male: Aiden L. — 16:14

First female: Izzy T-B. — 16:51

Pirrama called it their “Shake-Out Edition”, with hundreds of visiting runners in Sydney ahead of the marathon.

The Pirrama parkrun Course

Running Pirrama parkrun in Sydney

Pirrama is a two-lap waterfront course, and the surface changes more than I expected. You'll run or walk over bitumen, pavers and a wooden wharf right beside Sydney Harbour.

What I wore: I ran Pirrama in my Brooks Hyperion Elite 5, which handled the mix of bitumen, pavers and wooden boardwalk perfectly. Comfortable, grippy and one less thing to think about while I was busy trying not to trip over the scenery.

The wooden section is beautiful. It's also somewhere you might want to stop staring at the harbour for five seconds and look at your feet.

Some of those boards are genuinely uneven. Nothing that would stop me doing the course again, but definitely enough that I'd watch where I was putting my feet rather than assume everything underneath me was perfectly flat.

The pavers aren't completely smooth either.

Basically: admire the view, but occasionally remember you're meant to be looking where you're going.

There was also plenty of shade along sections of the course, which would make a considerable difference on a warmer Sydney morning.

Location-wise, though? Hard to fault.

You're right beside the harbour, running along the waterfront and across the wharf. On a normal Saturday, I imagine it would be absolutely gorgeous and relatively peaceful.

This was not a normal Saturday.

What's It Like With 1,053 People On A Two-Lap Course?

Hectic.

Genuinely, properly hectic.

Because Pirrama is two laps, there are runners and walkers travelling in both directions through some fairly tight sections of the course. The instruction is to keep left.

You've got walkers keeping left, runners overtaking them, and then people coming towards you doing exactly the same thing on their side. That leaves a fairly narrow strip through the middle for overtaking, and with more than a thousand people out there, sometimes it really needed to become a single-file operation.

A lot of people understood this beautifully.

A lot of people did not.

Apparently “single file” can be open to artistic interpretation.

It got squishy. Really squishy in places.

But this is where context matters.

Pirrama does not normally have 1,053 people turning up on a Saturday morning. We happened to visit on the biggest day in the event's history, with 667 other first-time visitors joining us.

So if you're reading this trying to decide whether to add Pirrama to your own parkrun tourism list, don't look at our morning and think you're going to be fighting 1,052 other people for a piece of waterfront every Saturday.

We picked the chaos edition.

And I still loved it.

Pirrama parkrun Waterfront Course

The Volunteers Deserve Their Own Mention

There were 51 volunteers managing 1,053 finishers.

Just think about that for a second.

They had to marshal, time, scan barcodes, manage the finish funnel, hand out tokens, sort everything afterwards, direct people and somehow keep more than a thousand runners and walkers moving in approximately the right direction.

And they did.

The atmosphere was fantastic. There was huge Sydney Marathon weekend energy around the whole place, and the volunteers were a massive part of it.

I wouldn't use this particular Saturday to judge what a normal Pirrama parkrun feels like. But I'd absolutely use it to judge how well the team handles being thrown completely into the deep end.

Facilities Near The Start

Everything you actually need is close to the start.

Coffee: There is somewhere to grab coffee nearby. Important information dealt with first.

Playground: There's a children's playground close by if you're travelling with little ones.

Toilets: Toilets are located behind the Pirrama Park Kiosk, right beside the starting area.

Full disclosure: I didn't personally inspect the toilets. Not with 1,053 people there. I had enough going on.

They're there.

That's the extent of my toilet review.

Our Pirrama Results

Pirrama parkrun Sydney With The Family

All four of us were first-timers at Pirrama:

🏃 Ethan — 25:05 | 192nd | parkrun #43

🏃 Chooky — 49:29 | 952nd | parkrun #198

🏃 Kirraleigh — 51:17 | 976th | parkrun #63

🏃 Tearri — 52:53 | 989th | parkrun #96

And yes, for the parkrun nerds among you, #198 means I'm now two away from 200.

I'm not going to make a whole thing of that here because “second-largest parkrun ever held in Australia” is slightly more interesting than “woman approaches suspiciously round number.”

But it's noted for future bragging rights.

Would I Do Pirrama parkrun Again?

Absolutely. No hesitation.

Beautiful location. Gorgeous harbour views. Great volunteers. Fantastic atmosphere. Easy to reach by public transport — once you actually remember to pay for said public transport — and an interesting course with the wharf thrown into the mix.

Was it crowded?

Mate, there were 1,053 people there.

Of course it was crowded.

But we accidentally picked the biggest Pirrama parkrun in history and the second-largest parkrun ever held in Australia.

For parkrun #198, I'll take that.

Ten out of ten. Would confuse public transport again.

Before You Go...

Want to know how a little Saturday morning 5k became a worldwide obsession?

👉 Read: The Global Rise of parkrun

And while you're reading this, there's a very good chance I'm somewhere in Brisbane chasing a Z at parkrun #199. Because apparently getting this close to 200 has turned me into exactly the kind of person who plans Saturday mornings around letters of the alphabet.

One more to go.

Keep Chasing Life 🧡

Chooky xx