My first parkrun

Today I completed my first parkrun just 9 short months and 2 days after I registered.

After much talking about it in the week the day dawned rather grey and drizzly, not quite what I was hoping for my first parkrun, but in reality probably quite good as I always struggle running when it’s too hot. Our local parkrun is in Bromley and although I was fairly sure of how to get to the location and that there was plenty of parking I didn’t want to take any chances of being late so after breakfast with Mr W who was going tube-running along the DLR, I left home just after 8. I needn’t of panicked – it took me just 10 minutes to get there, so I was almost 45 minutes early. I sat in the car for a while and watched lots of super-fit looking people turning up for a British Military Fitness class and some less fit looking teenagers piling onto a coach for some sort of trip, before getting out to find a loo – the usual pre-race nerves.

Walking back to the car I was pleased to spot someone in a bright orange t-shirt, which could only be the lovely Louise, aka abradypus, who I had volunteered to join me on my parkrun adventure. She is a seasoned parkrunner and is trying to visit a different venue each week, so the benefit wasn’t all mine. Having planned this earlier in the week Louise had kindly sent me a long email explaining exactly what happens at a parkrun event and when I spotted her she was busy explaining the ropes to another first timer! The concept of parkrun is the same wherever you go so although she’d not been to Bromley before she still had a good idea of how it was all going to work!

A bit of chatting later it was time to head over to the start area. There was a quick course brief for the newbies, some thanks to the sponsors and the volunteers and then we were off. As she was saving her legs for a long run tomorrow, Louise offered to run with me and although the bulk of the runners soon disappeared off ahead we managed to keep a few behind us as we slowly made our way round the course. I’m happy to say that we kept up a good conversation and ran the whole way finishing in 32:22 minutes. I was rather pleased about that since I was expecting to do around 33 minutes, it definitely helped having someone to run with – thanks Louise!

Afterwards there was tea and cake and chatting to fellow runners. It was nice to see some friends from our local running club both running and helping out. All in all a good morning’s exercise, as Arnie would say ‘I’ll be back’.

Still smiling even after running 5 miles!