Happy Hill parkrun

10/04/2026

Happy Hill parkrun #13 unexpectedly coexisted alongside the Running Scared 5K/13K (which apparently was scheduled to be at Quarry Park and had to make a last minute change), in addition to our typical neighbors with Tap In Fitness’ run club, so our 13 fantastic finishers had to dodge larger crowds than normal. But we persevered, with five of our group notching parkrun personal bests: Timothy C., Michelle B., Kendall W., Maryann L., and Meek D.!

Big thanks as always to this week’s volunteers! Jane P., Rick E., JJ E., Rachel M., Daniel D., and Adam E.

Great to see everyone this morning and we hope to see you again next week! Don’t forget to start planning your costumes and spreading the word for our Halloween parkrun at the end of the month!

10/02/2026

**REMINDER** Happy Hill parkrun changes its start time to 9:00 a.m. instead of 8:00 this week! 8:00 a.m. is the adjusted time for May through September that other local events use in order to beat some of the summer heat, but 9:00 is the standard time for parkruns around the world.

So, enjoy the extra hour of sleep, and we'll see you tomorrow morning!

09/28/2026

An unexpected 22/Tutu day this week for all parkrunners who choose to celebrate! 🎉💃

The hottest invitation in town 🧡

Will you join us this weekend to celebrate parkrun’s 22nd birthday ? 🎉

Tag two friends who you think should join you 👇

09/27/2026

Yesterday morning marked three whole months of Happy Hill parkrun, with Event #12!! Plus it was the first event of Fall, and boy did it feel that way! We were certainly thankful for the mid 40s to low 50s weather to keep us all cool. We saw a crowd of 14 participants, including parkrun World Tourists Bill and Frances Post and Sergey Aleshin! The former of whom have now completed every single parkrun in the United States (and almost 400 total parkruns), and the latter isn’t far behind them at 94 of them (and 484 parkrun finishes)! Thank you for coming to our quaint little NC parkrun!

In this wonderful weather we had, we had four parkrun personal bests - Matthew T., Jeff M., and Kevin and Katy S-W. We didn’t have any official milestones, but Mark S. celebrates his 10th parkrun with us, all at Happy Hill! We’re happy to allow anyone to embrace their youth and celebrate the under-18 milestones for some extra fun.

Lastly, as always, we couldn’t do this without our volunteers! Sergey A. graciously tailwalked after landing at RDU a few hours before the event, and my mom, Jane P., scanned tokens, my brother, JJ E., timed, and I, Adam E., was your Run Director and token distributor.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, both at the event and at our new post-event coffee location, Lot 63.

And one last important update, next week we change to a 9:00 a.m. start time! Like many of the local parkruns, the 8:00 a.m. start time is a summertime adjustment due to the heat, but from October to April, Happy Hill parkrun will be at the standard 9:00 o’clock.

09/20/2026

Yesterday was Happy Hill parkrun’s event number 11, and we welcomed 15 fun participants, almost half of which joined us at Happy Hill for the first time! Tourists included Joshua and Rebecca S. from Lillie parkrun in Michigan, Michelle B. joined us for the second week in a row from Amsterdamse Bos parkrun in the Netherlands, Brian P. from Ed Austin Regional parkrun in Jacksonville, Florida, Timothy and Maeve C. (the latter of whom for her first parkrun!) came all the way from Tralee parkrun in Ireland, and Heather B. and Kevin and Rosalyn M. from Durham. As always, a big thank you to our volunteers: Jane P., JJ E., Daniel D., Mark S., and Joshua S.

See you next week for event #12!!

09/18/2026

One last week of being one short on our core volunteer team, so if you'd like to support us this week we'd really appreciate it! We could use a tail walker or roles at the start line, including timer, finish token distributor, or barcode scanning. If you know you're going to run in the low 20s, you could participate in the 5K and volunteer after as well!

See y'all tomorrow!

09/13/2026

If Happy Hill parkrun were a parkrun participant younger than 18 years old, it would have gotten its first official milestone award this morning, as today was our 10th ever event!! And as usual it was a fun one! Of our 18 finishers, we were excited to have 2 first timers - Ahmad B. and Kevin T. and 7 tourists from events near and far! Our first finisher, Michelle B., was all the way from Amsterdamse Bos parkrun in the Netherlands, our second and third were father son duo Greg and Will G. from Anacostia parkrun in DC, John and Kathleen G. visited us for the first time from Little Sugar Creek in Charlotte, and Kevin and Katy S-W. came from Strathclyde parkrun in Scotland!! As always we are proud of everyone for their great work completing our 5K course, but we’ll give an extra shoutout to Ryan P., Nacisha P., and Athena T. for recording personal bests!

Also, we got our second ever milestone celebrated at today’s event! Jane Patterson, one of Happy Hill parkrun’s co-founders, hit her 25th volunteer milestone! We can’t overstate how much her help each week is appreciated.

And speaking of volunteers, this 10th event was made possible by 6 volunteers: Jane P. • Adam E. • JJ E. • Daniel D. • Rachel M. • Matthew T. Thank you so much for supporting us this week!

Join us next week for Happy Hill parkrun #11!

09/06/2026

This week at Happy Hill parkrun we got up to our 9th ever event - almost to double digits! We had 16 participants, including 6 first timers! Our event team consisted of 7 volunteers, including Jane Patterson, Happy Hill parkrun co-event director, on her first time run directing! Thanks so much as always to everyone who came out, and we’ll see you next week for #10!

09/06/2026

Happy Hill parkrun #9 - pictures from the turnaround point!