{"id":206997,"date":"2025-10-17T17:28:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206997\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T17:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:28:11","slug":"geraint-thomas-has-just-completed-his-first-parkrun-but-how-fast-was-he","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/206997\/","title":{"rendered":"Geraint Thomas has just completed his first Parkrun \u2013 but how fast was he?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geraint Thomas has wasted little time spreading his wings in retirement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 2018 Tour de France champion, who called time on a glittering 19-year professional career after the Tour of Britain in September, revealed on Friday\u2019s Watts Occurring podcast that he took part in his first Parkrun last weekend, ahead of his brother\u2019s wedding in South Wales.<\/p>\n

Parkrun, established in 2004, has become a global sensation, with more than 2,300 weekly, community-led 5km running events, and more than nine million registered participants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was weird going to it,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh yeah, it\u2019s just a 5k run\u2019. Then I turned up and obviously there\u2019s a mix [of people] there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a few that look quite good, then it\u2019s just families and a few people keeping fit, but I was like, \u2018This is a whole new world now, isn\u2019t it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas swapped his cycling shoes for running trainers at the Severn Bridge event, which crosses the border between South Wales and England. The event is one of the most iconic Parkrun events in the country, seeing runners cross the suspension bridge over the River Severn into England, before doing a U-turn and returning to Wales.<\/p>\n

Thomas\u2019 ex-team-mate and podcast co-host, Luke Rowe, asked the question we were all thinking: what time did he do it in?<\/p>\n

Read more: Tadej Poga\u010dar beaten by 40-year-old lawyer in Pogi Challenge charity ride<\/a><\/p>\n

\"GeraintGeraint Thomas received a hero’s welcome when the Tour of Britain passed through South Wales in September. Huw Fairclough \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I didn\u2019t have my QR code, so I couldn\u2019t get an official time, but the guy I was with did 19:50 minutes and I was a bit behind him,\u201d said Thomas. \u201cHe dropped me on the downhill.<\/p>\n

“I reckon I was just under 20 [minutes].”<\/p>\n

Will Thomas catch the Parkrun bug and return to better his time? Turns out it didn\u2019t take long for that to happen\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAs [my brother\u2019s] wedding was going on though, my time was getting better,\u201d joked Thomas. \u201cBy midnight, I was doing 16-something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The average Parkrun finishing time is 29:32 minutes. The men\u2019s record of 13:44 minutes was set by Nick Griggs in November 2024, while the women\u2019s Parkrun record of 15:13 minutes was set by Ciara Mageean in December 2023.<\/p>\n

The 5,000m world record on the track is faster still, with the current mark of 12:35.36 minutes established by Joshua Cheptegei in Monaco in 2020.<\/p>\n

Cheptegei went on to win 5,000m gold at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Olympics Games in 2021, before winning the 10,000m event at the Paris Games in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geraint Thomas has wasted little time spreading his wings in retirement.\u00a0 The 2018 Tour de France champion, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-206997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}