I was a bit nervous about going back to Parkrun. I ran my local event once 5 years ago on two good knees in a time of 32:21. I’m a lot slower now, which I’m not too fussed about when pootling about local lanes, but Parkrun has barcodes and clocks and fast people and people, which cranked up the internal pressure a little.
My son was not at all keen, so I bribed him with a tenner to come with me, which worked.
It was cold! As we got closer to the park, more and more lycra-clad people appeared. A lot of brave souls were wearing nothing but shorts and thin tops and goosepimples.
My son and I positioned ourselves near the back and then we… were… offfff… in the slowest of shuffles, as 263 runners were filtered down a narrow path with puddles to negotiate and no overtaking lane. Due to flooding there had been a course change and we were truly funnelled, forced to walk or jog on the spot at times - it was 130 metres before we hit the official start line and we didn’t hit our running stride until 3.5 minutes in.
Once that had been negotiated, it was fun. I chatted to my son and to a few people along the way. He stayed with me, despite bouncing on springs, clearly full of energy that could take him a lot faster.
As the kms passed, I found we were overtaking a few people, and despite running at a sub-7m/km average pace, which is much faster than my usual pootle (at least 25 seconds per km faster), I felt ok! Such is the energy that running at these events gives.
Son agreed that it had been good, and he’d be happy to do it once a month - without payment 😉
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