Well I suppose I sort of got there. The destination in question is the 5K target that was the focus of my pre-injury routine, when I embarked on the C25K (Couch to 5K) programme. I’d reached only the start of Week 6 of the 9-week plan when the painful ping in my calf suspended progress. But last Saturday I did at least make it to 5K by shuffling round the Eastbourne parkrun. It wasn’t an unwrinkled effort which is why it’s only a ‘sort of’ success.
Y’gotta love the parkrun phenomenon. One of those simple notions that makes you wonder why it hadn’t been done long before it got off the ground in 2004. I don’t who they were, this handful of people who had the vision and energy to move the idea from drawing board to reality. All I know is that there were about a dozen of them on the inaugural run in Teddington, and it took a couple of years to spread to other locations. Whoever they were, we should be grateful to them, especially for the way they intelligently managed the expansion. Right from the off they used technology well, and created a simple model and minimal rules which never threaten the core aims of promoting free, democratic, recreational activity.
Despite not having participated for 16 years, I knew exactly what to expect. And my results were still up there, instantly retrievable. This was only my third ever parkrun event. I did a couple in 2009, not long before decamping to Switzerland where they didn’t, and still don’t, exist. I haven’t worked out why this is. There are parkruns all over Northern Europe, Scandinavia and Italy, but none in France, Spain or Switzerland. The Swiss should be parkrun naturals. They’re sporty and outdoorsy, and love being organised and told what to do. I remember attending a Dionne Warwick concert in Luzern where she asked the audience to sing a certain line three times — which we duly did. “Wow, an audience that obeys instructions,” she joked, to which a bloke in the row behind us called out, “Ja, off course. Ve are Sviss!”
Anyway. The decision to turn up for the Eastbourne parkrun was taken very late, leaving me very little time to print off my barcode and get to Shinewater Park. It’s not a beautiful venue, at least not early on an overcast, blustery Saturday morning, yet more than 300 people turned up. In terms of organisation and general vibe, little had changed since the last time I did one of these events. A crowd of mostly chatty people, some young in go-fast lycra, others at my end of the scale: old and silent, crab-faced and portly, yet made to feel welcome. One innovation is the appearance of teeshirts and vests to commemorate the number of parkruns their inhabitant has achieved: 25, 50, 100, 250 or 500. (500? Crikey.)
I set off with no strategy and no idea what might happen. I plodded for a while, then strolled for a while. Then did that again a couple of times. And that was it. The route took us up a featureless tarmacked path to a point in the middle of nowhere (presumably 2.5km from the start) where we were suddenly turned around and ordered back. Runners had been streaming past me in the opposite direction from what seemed like a point shortly after the start, so it came as no surprise that it was to be a simple out-and-back course. The event apparently has a winter course and a summer course. I’m not sure which season we’re in, route-wise, but the standard course as shown online, has us circumambulating the small lake. Probably a more interesting experience.
The most, indeed only, memorable incident occurred at a fork in the path towards the end, when a cheery marshal beamed as I headed off to my right, only to realise a couple of minutes later, that I should have taken the other path. Story of my life, I thought. I stopped to remonstrate with the marshal but she just beamed a bit more and said, referring to the parkrun procession, “Oh sorry, I thought you weren’t with it!” My riposte was too predictable to need spelling out here.
I finally arrived back at the start in 301st place out of 312 finishers, and 171st out of 177 men. 47:01 minutes. Very slow but who cares, really? Certainly not me. Even at school I was never a fast runner, and I don’t plan to tackle that lifelong characteristic now. All I’m interested in is getting in some regular recreational plodding. The distant border of my ambition is to get round some 10Ks. Notably the Brighton 10K in November and the Almeria 10K next April, in the company of the great Antonio. This was a perfectly acceptable first step on the path to those goals. All being well, I’ll do the parkrun again, not just in Eastbourne but further afield. The doughty Tom Roper has offered to roll out the Seaford red carpet, and there are hundreds more to investigate. If I were ever to become eligible for one of those fetching parkruns milestone teeshirts, I’d feel very satisfied indeed.
