It started with two separate conversations in 2023.
The first was my son’s best friend, who was already doing Parkrun — and my son wanted to join him one day. The second was catching up with a friend around the Christmas season, who mentioned he’d also started not long ago, but at a different course than my son’s friend. His was nice and flat, he said, and the best part wasn’t even the run itself — it was the coffee afterwards with a genuinely nice group of people.
Those two conversations planted a seed. When my wife suggested running as our family’s New Year’s resolution for 2024, it felt like the right time. On 13 January 2024, I showed up at The Ponds Parkrun for the first time.
I knew my fitness wasn’t great, and with a fair bit of extra weight to carry, so I told myself I’d run slowly enough to make sure I didn’t get injured, and just see how far I could actually go. The answer: 800 metres. I walked the remaining 4.2km. Total time: 40:43.
Here’s the strange part. As I was walking, I found myself thinking back to when I was 14 — I was able to run 800m back then too, in school. Thirty years apart, and my body could apparently manage exactly the same distance, not a step more. It felt almost like some kind of parallel-universe joke: without training, thirty years doesn’t move the needle at all.
The second week, I walked the entire course fast — but told myself surely I could beat my first time just by walking faster. I finished in 43:40.
By about the tenth week, I noticed something else: on Saturday mornings, I’d wake up with a natural resistance to going, and my right ankle would suddenly feel a little sore. I knew it wasn’t real pain, but it was just enough to make skipping tempting. I went anyway.
That’s where this all began. Not with a training plan, not with any grand ambition — just two conversations, a family resolution, and a very slow 800 metres.