Now both the physical wounds and the mental scars have had time to heal I feel I can try to put into words how my first Parkrun went ……

The last track on the radio that was playing when I parked the car in Lichfields Beacon Park pay and display was fittingly The Spencer Davis Groups ‘Keep on Running’ (honestly I’m not making that up) surely this was a sign? How difficult could running 5k be? After all this was a distance that would have had me barely breaking a sweat at the age of 16 when I was in the school cross country running team a mere (hang on let me think) 33 years ago 😳 and I had managed to finish that charity half marathon back in 2009 without killing myself….. Yes, alright I hadn’t done any training whatsoever, but if the worst came to the worst I could always walk for a bit…… These were the thoughts jogging through my mind as I rather hesitantly joined the trickle of other ‘dressed for a run’type of people walking across the park towards a gaggle of people dressed in Hi-vis jackets.

After a nice bloke with a megaphone had explained some does and don’ts and how the run would work for the handful of slightly sheepish first timers like myself I positioned myself comfortably near the back of the two hundred or so runners and waited for the start. I’d spent the last few minutes before everyone started lining up surreptitiously weighing up my fellow runners a little, and yes there were some obviously serious people here wearing running club vests and looking like they had spent as much time counting calories as they did running. These were the folks who I’d watched doing serious structured warm ups, going through routines which hardly seemed to break them into a sweat but that would have left me incapacitated for a week.

Thankfully though the vast majority of my fellow runners seemed content to limit their warmups to a couple of quick knee bends and a few cursory stretches before ambling around chatting happily away with anybody who happened to be standing next to them. This less focused majority certainly seemed to be drawn from all sections of society with a pretty broad cross section of ages, genders and waist lines being in evidence. Choosing to line up alongside a few folks I roughly guessed to be about my age and fitness (most of them looked like they knew their way around a dessert menu like me) I hoped I’d be able to keep up and not disgrace myself. Tentative goals? Well I was going to try my absolute best to run (or at least jog ) the entire way, and hopefully be as close to the 30 minute mark as I could get.

The first kilometre wasn’t that bad. It was a nice slow start as the crocodile of runners funnelled across the start line which allowed both my breathing and slightly hesitant stride pattern to settle down into something that could loosely be described as a rhythm. Ok I would never have made it as a Chariots of Fire extra, but I was most definitely running. I’ll admit to being slightly disheartened as a chap pushing a baby in some sort of off road pram contraption cruised effortlessly past me within the first 500m or so, but I consoled myself with the thought that the elderly gent in the ‘I’ve done over a 100 Parkruns’ t shirt just in front of me wasn’t getting away. Kilometre #2 was also dispatched without too much difficulty, Mr 100 Parkruns was now comfortably trailing in my wake and I’d managed to catch and pass a couple of other fellow middle aged sufferers, now I was concentrating on reeling in a couple of annoyingly chirpy kids who despite seemingly using as much oxygen for talking as they were for running were remaining tantalisingly out of reach.

As we moved onto the second lap of the park my Apple Watch’s pacing function (which I hadn’t know it had had till 10 minutes before the start) was telling me I was a bit behind my target of 6 minute per kilometre pace and therefore a minor injection of speed was needed if I was to finish close to the 1/2 hour mark. This was where it really started to bite. Kilometer’s 3 & 4 took me to a very dark place. Alright, I’m not talking near death experience like crawling down a mountain with a broken leg (Touching the Void – great book, read it) or staggering towards the finish line of a marathon wearing a diving suit dark, but for me it was pretty dark, ok?

It wasn’t that my lungs or heart were particularly feeling the burn (yes I was working hard, but no harder than if I was grinding my way up a steep long climb on the bike say) but my legs and feet were definitely starting to ask what the hell I thought I was doing? The last kilometre was absolute chuffing agony. The front of my shins felt as if a sadistic giant was squeezing them while his even more psycho mate was busy jabbing a red hot poker around under my left kneecap trying to prise it off my leg. It was a very, very miserable experience, and no I couldn’t catch the kids in front of me either. Staggering into the finish and handing in my slightly crumpled barcode to be swiped was a blessed relief. I’d even achieved (according to my watch anyway) a time a few seconds under the magic 30 minute mark and I’d managed to run (or my parody of a run anyway) the entire 5 kilometres.

Unfortunately my jubilation over my modest achievements was pretty short lived. It took me a good couple of minutes to ease my cramping legs out of the car when I got to work that evening, and by 3 am the following morning I could hardly move which my colleagues found incredibly amusing. The next day was even worse, it felt as if someone had superglued my knees into the slightly bent position and my left foot was so tender I could hardly put any weight on it. In fact it was almost a week until my foot stopped hurting, and by then the constant limping had started my dodgy old left knee hurting well. I really was the perfect example of what happens when you attempt something your bodies not used to with zero training.

So will I do another one? Well I’m writing this almost 3 months later and I haven’t laced the running shoes on again yet. It’s not totally down to the humbling week or so of total agony that followed the first effort, it’s more been a combination of working or having family commitments on nearly every Saturday since. My work schedule means I’ll never be a regular Park Runner, but I would like to try again, and hopefully I’ll be a little better prepared next time. It’s most certainly reminded me of the importance of cross training for cyclists, and just how bad we are at other sports when we only concentrate on one!