Sport England’s Active People survey results were released on Thursday. Though the headline news was not happy reading – particularly for swimming enthusiasts – there were a few cheering stats for supporters of running. Here they are, courtesy of England Athletics, to mull over as you pound the pavements, skirt the snow or plough through the mud this weekend.

• A total of 2.162 million people aged 16 and over took part in athletics for at least 30 minutes a week in the year from October 2013 to October 2014. This was an increase on the figure of 2.016 million the previous year. With the 14-16 age band included, the figure now reaches 2.288 million.

• The number of over-16s running for 30 minutes a week or more grew from 1.95 million to 2.08 million.

• The figures for track and field rose from just under 92,000 to almost 108,000.

• The number of club athletes registered with England Athletics currently stands at just under 135,000 for 2014-15, already more than 2,000 up on the previous record set in the year of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

And finally, let’s not forget that 2014 was also the year that parkrun celebrated its 10th birthday – and 5,135,983 runs logged.

Happy running!