All the people, so many people...

Photo credit: South Manchester parkrun

...and they all go hand in hand, hand in hand through their parkrun. 

Just in case you're not a huge Blur fan, I've altered those lyrics slightly. I am going to talk about parkrun though, because well, it's amazing. 

Every Saturday morning at 9am, up and down the UK (and in some other countries too) thousands of people go to their local park and run a timed, free 5km run. Yup, you heard. FREE. it's made possible by an army of volunteers all of whom give up their Saturday morning to organise a run. No matter what the weather, and in some parts of the UK it can be pretty grim, pretty regularly. 

My home parkrun is South Manchester and it's run at Platt Fields park. On the last Saturday of the month the local running club organise pacers, so that those of you who want to achieve a PB can do so and it's this kind of selflessness that is the embodiment of the parkrun spirit. Everyone is genuinely interested in you having an exceptional time. Or as exceptional as you can given it's Manchester and it'll most probably be raining. 

Which brings me to Saturday morning. I woke up at 6am to the sounds of thrumming rain and the distinct feeling that I would much rather stay in bed than go and run. Plus, despite the fact it's mostly run on tarmacked paths South Manchester does have about 1km run on a muddy path with a couple of sizable puddles. I burrowed back under the duvet. A short while later I dragged my backside out of bed. The rain had virtually stopped, and although no self-respecting Mancunian would assume that would remain the case for longer than about 15 mins I got myself dressed, ate a couple of pieces of toast with jam and inhaled a coffee. Still no more rain. At 8:30 I was at Platt Fields running my regular pre-parkrun route. It was at this point I realised I had an unignorable pain in my left calf. At this point I debated just going home, but it was pacing day and although I was pretty sure my PB hopes were through, I thought I could run slow. Enjoy the run. 

Fortunately the rain had stopped and there was even a hint of sunlight. As the crowds gathered and the pre race brief was done , I started to feel the adrenaline flowing and off we went. 

26:27 mins later I was back and 40 seconds under my previous PB. Which I was pleased with, as you are. The best thing though was the marshalling which pushed me round, The achy leg nagged at me the entire time but I managed to just tell it to shut up, and when I thought about sacking it off and hobbling back to collect my bag a cheery person would tell me to keep going and I would. 

This for me is why I suspect I'm starting to enjoy running. The social aspect of it is lovely, and even though I don't know many people yet, I still feel like I'm part of something. This isn't unique to South Manchester either, I ran Worcester a few weeks back and that was equally awesome. There's something truly lovely about 400 people forgoing a lie in in favour of running for the sheer joy of it. And every now and then, a PB.