National Parks Week
Celebrating our winning landscapes
National Parks Week 2012: July 30 to August 5, 2012
This year's National Parks Week is a celebration of our beautiful winning landscapes which have inspired mountaineers, sailors, cyclists, runners and Olympic athletes to aim higher and train harder - sometimes to record-breaking effect.
We hope a visit to one of our family of 15 National Parkswill inspire you to get fit and active too!
We have activities and events for all ages and abilities - you never know, a hobby could turn into a passion for sport that sees you on the Olympic podium one day!
But whether you're training for a triathlon or you just want a family-friendly activity, we're sure you'll enjoy our world-class great outdoors and the events we've got lined up for National Parks Week 2012.
Athletes inspired by our National Parks
- Sebastian Coe, now Lord Coe and the man in charge of our 2012 Olympic Games, was brought up in Sheffield and used to train in the Peak District National Park before going on to win Olympic gold medals in Moscow (1980) and Los Angeles (1984) and many other medals in a glittering athletic career.
- Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist Nicole Cooke (she won a hard-fought victory in Beijing in 2008) loves to train in the Brecon Beacons National Park. Her favourite route takes in the Fan y Big and the Cribyn - with spectacular views all the way to the Black Mountains, not that she has time to stop and admire the view.
- World explorer and super-fit adventurer Ranulph Fiennes keeps fit and active in the beautiful countryside around his home in Exmoor National Park. Sir Ranulph is the only man to have circumnagivated the earth's surface via both the North and South Poles. The Guinness Book of Records named him the world's greatest living explorer in 1984.
- For more athletes inspired by National Parks see pages left.
Events for National Parks Week
You don't need Olympic ambitions to compete - and many of our events are free. Details will be available here by end of June.
