The wonderful diversion of parkrun

Yesterday was a month to marathon day. I have two more long runs to do ( 19 and 21 miles or so, if you're asking) before I hit taper. The weather is slowly warming (unfortunately for me, I prefer cold wet days to run!) and there's an inescapable feeling that everything's moving to a climax. Not least as I received my marathon programme and registration form today!


So I'm going to ignore the incessant marathon talk, and instead focus on parkrun - the other end of the running spectrum, both in distance (5k vs 42k) and in spirit in many ways ( free community based run vs huge corporate based behemoth).

Let's be clear - I bloody well love parkrun. It's absolutely ace and one of the major keystones of my running life. At it's bare bones, it's a free 5km run on Saturday mornings in parks all around the UK and the world. It's volunteer organised and run, with the emphasis on community involvement and focussing on the joy of running rather than competing.
Frankly, if you're reading this blog and don't already know about parkrun, then go register right now (here) and try one as soon as you can.

I first started parkrun in 2009 in Richmond and went in fits and starts for a while. Took me 2.5 years to do 20 runs...I'd do one or two and then not do it for months. Something unimaginable now! What changed was when I started volunteering at Bedfont Lakes parkrun in early 2012 - it was part of my new training regime when I was cross-training on Saturdays. So I'd cycle the 4.5 miles there, volunteer as a marshal or scanner, then cycle home.

By volunteering, I started to get to know the core team more as you'd see the same faces every week. Saturday mornings quickly turned into parkrunday.  A few months later I offered to take over the news reports, Facebook and twitter feeds and then became a Run Director (who has responsibility for a run on a given Saturday, usually as part of a rota). Less than 10 months after first volunteering, I agreed to take over as Event Director along with Ian Cockram to replace the amazing Sharon Gibson who was stepping down. (The Event Director has overall responsibility for the whole event)

parkrun is such a major part of my life now it's hard to imagine what I would do without it. I've made some great friends there, many of whom accompany me on some of my Long Slow Runs on Sundays. The buzz and atmosphere around the park at 8.55 on a Saturday morning never fails to thrill me, nor dos the sight of so many disparate runners - old, young, fast, slow etc winding their way through the park


Aside from the social side, having a weekly timed 5k run is an enormous bonus to training. I have 73 parkrun times in my history, so it's a great database to look back on your time history. It can be used to develop speed over the shorter distances, or as part of a longer run - some weeks I push hard for a fast time, other weeks I take it easy and enjoy the run or help a friend try and break their PB.

Right now parkrun is almost a diversion from my training - it's the most enjoyable run of the week for me and feels like such a contrast to my marathon paced run on Thursday or my LSR.

And when my marathon training is finished, and the 26.2 miles is a memory, I'll still be back at parkrun every Saturday morning  - usually at Bedfont Lakes, but sometimes as a tourist at one of the other events :-)