Alice Couldwell spent years waking up the country with the news on Heart Breakfast. These days her Sunday mornings look rather different.

Twice named National Newsreader of the Year, Alice has anchored from Buckingham Palace for the Coronation, reported from Centre Court at Wimbledon and covered a Women’s FA Cup Final at Wembley. Then she left national radio to lead communications for junior parkrun — the free, 2km Sunday morning event for children aged 4 to 14.

In this episode she tells Catherine about growing up in a house full of vinyl and news bulletins, the years when her alarm started with a three, and the morning a self-described non-runner found herself on the start line of her first parkrun in Leeds. She has since completed the London Marathon and reached her 100th parkrun on the very last event of 2025.

We also talk about what makes a Sunday morning junior parkrun a different animal from a Saturday 5k, what happens to a child when you hand them a stopwatch, why teenage girls drift away from sport and what two kilometres in a park can realistically do about it, and why, for Alice, movement is a kind of meditation.

Her answer to anyone still carrying the belief that running isn’t for them is worth the listen on its own.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Growing up in a house full of radio

• Heart Breakfast, and two National Newsreader of the Year titles

• The Coronation, Centre Court and Wembley

• "I absolutely wasn’t a runner"

• A first parkrun, and a roar of applause for the first-timers

• Reaching 100 parkruns

• The leap from reporting stories to shaping them

• Inside a Sunday morning junior parkrun

• Teenage girls and falling away from sport

• Movement as meditation, and the pull of the mountains

• The Personal Best Foundation

• One millionth parkrun at Bushy Park

• "Just show up"

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Thank you for tuning in. It's been great to have you here.. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Stay connected with us on social media (Instagram, Facebook & LinkedIn) for updates and more inspiring parkrunners' stories. Until next time, keep running, keep smiling and keep on showing up!

What keeps a World Champion and Olympic medallist coming back to a free 5K in the park on a Saturday morning?

This week, Catherine is joined by one of Ireland's greatest ever athletes, Sonia O'Sullivan, 5,000m World Champion, Olympic silver medallist and, these days, a passionate parkrunner with more than 200 events to her name.

But this isn't simply a conversation about medals and elite athletics.

Sonia shares how she discovered parkrun in its early days at Bushy Park, how it fitted around family life and training, and why she now seeks out parkruns on her travels around the world. She even arrived for this conversation fresh from a parkrun in Krakow.

Sonia and Catherine talk about longevity in running, learning not to train harder and faster all the time, the importance of building from the fitness you have today, parkrun tourism, family, dogs, post-parkrun coffee and the simple motivation of having somewhere to be on a Saturday morning.

And for anyone who has been thinking about trying parkrun but hasn't quite made it to that first start line, Sonia has a wonderfully simple message: once you decide to do it, you may walk away wondering why you didn't do it sooner.

From World Championship gold and Olympic silver to the enduring pleasure of running in a park with everyone else, this is a warm and uplifting conversation about what keeps us running long after the finish lines that once mattered most.

And Sonia's three words for parkrun?

“Saturday wake up.”

🎧 Listen now to Sonia O'Sullivan on The Parkrunners Podcast.

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Thank you for tuning in. It's been great to have you here.. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Stay connected with us on social media (Instagram, Facebook & LinkedIn) for updates and more inspiring parkrunners' stories. Until next time, keep running, keep smiling and keep on showing up!

What does it take to turn a Saturday morning idea into a movement that half a million Australians now call part of their weekly routine?

In this episode, Catherine sits down with Tim Oberg, the founder of parkrun Australia, for a warm, candid and often surprising look back at how it all began, including the true story of how a rescued street dog from Montenegro named Clarence was the reason Tim discovered parkrun in the first place (dogs used to get their own barcodes — yes, really).

Tim, a former national junior weightlifting champion who "actively avoided" endurance running for most of his life, talks about the email that started it all, the coffee meeting with parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt, and arriving in Australia in 2011 with nothing but a licensing agreement, three stopwatches and no idea what he was about to build.

From the first 110 finishers at Main Beach to parkruns now running inside Australian prisons, on Hamilton Island, and in the country's smallest regional towns, Tim shares:

• The real reason parkrun works so well in the modern world - his theory of the lost "third space"
• The candid, funny truth about working with parkrun's famously blunt founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt
• How he borrowed a idea from Flight Centre's "Family Village Tribe" model to scale parkrun across the country
• A moving tribute to the late Professor Richard Scolyer and fellow parkrun advocate Lisa Millar
• Why he walked away from parkrun in 2022 after 11 years — and the new mission driving him now: getting a million Australian kids moving before Brisbane hosts the 2032 Olympics, through his Healthy Kids Project and RAD Run Club

This is a founder's story about community, purpose, and knowing when it's time for the next chapter.

Find out more about Tim's current work: radrun.club

🎧 Listen now — and if this episode moves you, share it with someone who needs their own "third space."

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Send us Fan Mail

Thank you for tuning in. It's been great to have you here.. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Stay connected with us on social media (Instagram, Facebook & LinkedIn) for updates and more inspiring parkrunners' stories. Until next time, keep running, keep smiling and keep on showing up!