Belfast's Queen's Parkrun has become a target for participants in the global Parkrun network seeking to complete the "alphabeteer" challenge, in which runners tick off events starting with every letter of the alphabet except X. The letter Q is notoriously scarce, making the south Belfast event a regular draw for visitors from across the UK and Ireland.

Parkrun is a network of free, timed 5km runs held in more than 20 countries. Participants register online, receive a personal barcode, and can scan in at any of the 2,300 weekly events worldwide. The Parkrun app awards a flag icon for each country visited and fuels challenges such as the alphabeteer.

Peter Tucker, from Ballyclare in County Antrim, has embraced the travel opportunities since moving to Northern Ireland in 2021. He said he used Parkrun as a way to explore his new home and has since visited events in Australia, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States.

Mr Tucker described a trip that took him from Las Vegas to Cedar City in Utah for a Thanksgiving Day run, and then on to New York for the regular Saturday event. He has also combined Parkrun with longer journeys, visiting Seattle, Vancouver and Calgary after a drive through the Canadian Rockies, and touring all five Nordic countries in three weeks.

His future plans include a run on Inis Meáin off the coast of Galway, as well as destinations further afield. He has booked flights to South Africa and is on a waiting list for a charter flight to the British Overseas Territory of St Helena, one of Parkrun's newest locations.

The network, which began in the UK in 2004, continues to expand. New events in St Helena and the Cayman Islands are already attracting interest from early planners, while other perennially scarce letters such as Z are often found in Poland or the Netherlands. Queen's Parkrun remains a reliable Q for those pursuing the full set.