From knee replacements to 300 parkruns: ‘Toppie’ keeps going strong
Neil Munro calls himself a ‘toppie with two artificial knees’ – but that hasn’t stopped him from reaching an extraordinary milestone of 300 parkruns.
The 81-year-old’s landmark run came on Saturday, April 11, at the Edenvale parkrun, surrounded by familiar faces and that unmistakable Saturday morning buzz shared by parkrunners across the world.
The first parkrun in South Africa was held in November 2011 at Delta Park in Johannesburg, but Neil first took part six years later, in 2017.
“I did a bit of running in high school,” he says, “but nothing much after that until discovering parkruns.”
There have been milestones along the way: His 50th run on a bright spring day in 2018, and his 250th in September 2024. But the numbers only tell part of the story.
Between those milestones are hundreds of early mornings, steady kilometres and determined steps – especially impressive considering Neil had both knees replaced in 2010.
These days, he keeps himself going with a familiar route closer to home, walking a 5km loop within the grounds of Rand Aid’s Inyoni Creek, where he has lived since moving into phase one of the village in 2007.
And while he may be modest about his pace, Neil’s humour keeps him firmly in stride with the spirit of parkrun. “The 5km parkruns I mainly shuffle,” he says. “I can’t keep up with the youngsters.”
