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parkrunning 29 March 2015 15:57 As you know, I don’t really do sport. And I certainly don’t do running. The last time I did anything that could be remotely called a run was the Monday after the clocks went forward and I got home from work and wondered what to do with this unexpected light evening. “Let’s go for a run” suggested my house mate. So we did. That was 26 years ago. Sometimes the planets align and strange things happen. Sometimes other coincidences occur and strange things happen. I’m not sure which of these happened yesterday but I voluntarily went for a 5 km run. No, nothing was chasing me, and I hadn’t seen someone wearing a t-shirt saying “I’m a bomb disposal expert. If you see me running try to keep up”. There’s this thing called parkrun (one word, all lowercase) organised across the country. You don’t have to be a member of a running club; you just turn up and run. You get properly timed; marshals and supporters give encouragement; there’s no competition; no one really cares whether you take 20 minutes or 50 minutes; it’s free to enter; and there is cake at the end (well there is in Eastleigh, I can’t comment on other events). CGF has taken part in a few of them, so yesterday I was going to go down and watch. “You could take part if you are coming down anyway” “I suppose you haven’t got any running shoes” “You don’t own any shorts?” “The shops are still open. There’s half an hour till dinner. We could go and buy some” So Saturday morning we went to try this parkrun. When I registered the form asked “how much activity (to leave you out of breath) have you done in the last four weeks?” Four weeks? They could have asked four years and got the same answer (“none”). The course is a loop that you do three times. I decided I would be happy if I could do one circuit without stopping. Well, I managed to get round the first circuit, and didn’t feel an overwhelming need to stop so carried on. After the second circuit I only had one more to go. Then, "well, there’s only that little hill to go, then it is downhill all the way to the finish". So how about that – after 26 years I can run 5km without stopping. And a fairly creditable 32 minutes. Except, apparently, I now have to aim for a sub-30 minute time.
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