I had conquered my Everest, I'd run a 5k. Did I have the bug? I'm not sure but we persevered.
I had vaguely known about Parkrun. Miranda had done a few. But running with 500 other people? I liked running first thing in the morning - far fewer people will see you then right? And I'm not sure what I was doing even counted as running...
Our nearest Parkrun was Norman Park in Bromley, a large open park with an athletics track inside.
On the 9th May 2015, I took the plunge, and got round in a lumbering 36:21. Sadly this has not been recorded for the ages as I didn't have a barcode.
So - my official assault on the local record of 14:36 began. The next week I had by barcode and ran. Well - kind of....34:33. An improvement.
I carried on plodding along on an almost weekly basis - and despite getting a bit quicker (31:41) by September - it wasn't spectacular. But I was ready for more...and entered my first 10k in November - more to follow!
However, I love Parkrun. There were friends there, my wife ran every week, my kids did it sometimes. The atmosphere and support are great - it has a real community feel...
I build Parkruns into my training programme, I volunteer, I love visiting other venues, and am involved in setting up a new one. It's been a huge part of my motivation and has done a great deal to keep my enthusiasm going.
Anyhow - here's me on the day of my first official Parkrun, finishing a school fun run in the afternoon - things have changed!
No comments:
Post a Comment