Northern Ireland leads the pack in Parkrun

Parkrun organises free, weekly, 2km and 5km runs around the world.

All events are run by volunteers and people of every ability are encouraged to take part.

Speaking to BBC News NI, Mr Shields recalls how quickly it began to gain traction.

“Getting a Parkrun started up at the Waterworks has transformed the area.

“There was a lot of anti-social behaviour happening there at the time, but once the community moved in and started utilising the space more, that started to change.

“Once [councils] saw the positive impact that Parkrun was having they were asking us to set up more and more.”

There are now about 50,000 regular Parkrun participants in Northern Ireland, with more than 6,000 weekly participants, according to Parkrun records.

In Northern Ireland there is one participant per 285 of the population, in rest of the UK it’s one per 347, and in the Republic one in 333.

For further comparison, there is one Parkrun event per 33,000 of Northern Ireland’s population. In the rest of the UK, there is one event per 65,000 of the population.