My First: Parkrun

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I’d been meaning to try parkrun for a while. I’d heard such great things, and I’d never actually raced a 5K distance previously. But the way my training plan and workout schedule fell, I was doing intense workouts on Thursdays and Fridays, meaning I was knackered by Saturday mornings and in much need of a lie in. Nonetheless every Saturday I slept in, I felt like I’d missed an opportunity to get a workout in and meet other runners.

JK I know it’s not that early.

I expressed these sentiments one Thursday on Twitter, and thanks to a retweet the guys at ukrunchat, I received a torrent of gentle bullying, motivation and overall endorsement of parkrun, with an undercurrent of Get your shit together, it’s not even that early. So I committed to a parkrun, publicly, on Twitter. No escape. My close friend and fellow runner Rachael was coming to stay that Friday night, so I now had even more accountability. Having done parkruns in the past herself, I knew she would drag me out of bed if needed.

Panic kicking in

With a no excuses type attitude, the morning start wasn’t really a problem. I was a little cranky at having to run without my Garmin (which had inexplicably broken); and very forgetful, meaning I left my barcode at the flat and had to loop back to go and get it. But still, I made it, and that’s what counts.

On arriving at Hilly Fields I nervously headed over to the group of people in brightly-coloured lycra that I assumed to be parkrunners. Thankfully, I was right. There was very little fuss, apart from the health & safety speech and plenty of clapping and cheering for newbies, volunteers and those celebrating parkrun anniversaries. And then we got to the running bit.

Not having the best of times

Now, this was painful; Hilly Fields was not a misnomer as I had hoped. It was indeed very hilly. Hilly as fuck, in fact. But Rachael had come along and cheered adorably like a proud mother on sports day, which raised my spirits. She also captured some cracking photos of me looking pained, unimpressed and downright murderous as I huffed up hill after hill. As an insight, my internal monologue went along the lines of:

• Why the fuck am I up this early?
• And running?
• Up hills?
• Shit, I just got passed by a guy with a stroller
• Have I seriously not covered 5k yet?!
• Did I get lapped by the guy with the stroller?
• Shit.
• Where am I going?
• What am I doing?!
• Shit.

Eventually I finished with a time of 24:04. Not too shabby for a first-timer. I caught up with Rachael at the finish, before heading home for breakfast with a feeling of satisfaction that lasted all day. Several runners from the Twittersphere checked in with me, and I was pleased to say that I had in fact done it, as promised. And it wasn’t so bad after all!

What I wish I’d known before my first parkrun

• There’s really not a lot to it; you don’t have to be particularly fast, or fit.
• Everyone is really friendly!
• It’s low key and unceremonious- just a bunch of people who want to tootle round a park at a pace that suits them.
• Having said that, it’s really hard for me personally to be surrounded by other runners and not race them.
• You absolutely need your barcode. Almost learnt this one the hard way.
• The volunteers are absolutely what make it. In fact, by the time you read this, I’ll have completed my first ever stint as a parkrun volunteer (blog post to follow)!

Have you tried parkrun? What’s your advice for a beginner?

Lots of love,

Pippa