This Saturday, the parkrun will be celebrating 14 years of families, friends and individuals spending their Saturday morning taking part in a free 5km run.

• See all of our parkrun galleries so far here

Each 5km event is managed and ran by volunteers, where participants only need to register once to receive a personal bar code to track the time it takes to complete the route.

In Darlington, the South Park parkrun in near to celebrating its sixth birthday and recently reached its 300th run, on September 15.

Beginning on December 15 2012 with 137 runners, the South Park run has more than doubled with 325 taking part at its last event.

They reached their record number of participants at the beginner of this year, when 450 took part on January 1.

Karen Newton, from Darlington, volunteers at the parkrun and has seen herself become the official resident photographer.

She began by taking photos of her son, Dean Newton, 22, who formerly ran for the Quakers running club and has been taking part in the parkrun since the beginning.

Since then she has taken over 150,000 photos of runners and has just celebrated her 250th volunteer position.

Now living in Saltburn, Mrs Newton still travels almost every Saturday to volunteer and support those taking part.

She said: “Parkrun has become a huge part of my life and there are several reasons why I volunteer. I have made some wonderful friends and have seen people achieve their goals, whether they be weight loss, help with their mental health or getting a personal best.

“Seeing families grow and come back each week is brilliant, seeing children's faces when they finish is priceless. Seeing people who walk around the course and in a few short weeks can run the whole way, what an achievement. It is something I look forward to every Saturday.”

Mrs Newton said the parkrun not only boosts people's mental health through exercise but also helps people to socialise who would otherwise feel isolated.

She added: "It’s such a massive social event. People want to come back because they experience how friendly the park run is.

“Our parkrun is like a big family, when someone doesn't come you notice, and I feel that this is due to our core team and volunteers investing their time and efforts to make our parkrun friendly, approachable and very welcoming.

“What I love is the first person that comes through gets a huge cheer and the last person to come through gets a huge cheer. Everybody is equal."

The parkrun is open to people of all ages and even allows people run with pushchairs or their dog - but not both at the same time.

The Darlington parkrun takes places every Saturday morning at 9.00am at South Park near the Parkside entrance.

• More information, including a link to register, can be found at parkrun.org.uk/darlingtonsouthpark/ or on the park run Facebook page.