I started Parkrun about 8 years ago. We were living close to a park, where an event took place and decided to try it out one Saturday morning. I had 2 young kids at this stage, and thought this might be good to do as a family.
Firstly, you need to pack stuff in when you have young kids as they get bored very easily and there is only so much arts and crafts you can do without blowing your head off. So, thinking that this might be good, or even if the kids don’t enjoy it, it won’t matter because we will have filled in a significant amount of time. Chapter 1 from the parenting handbook! Secondly, it is a good example to set, plenty of exercise is good for kids. Thirdly, they might actually enjoy running, who knows.
Turns out that one enjoyed it, and one absolutely hated it. That meant, either mother or father would be stuck at the back of the pack, trying to cajole and encourage the youngest to keep going. Mostly, whoever ran at the back would only get 1 lap of the 2.5k route, whilst the oldest child and t’other parent would be in the pack getting the most out of the morning. It was hard to not feel that it was a waste of time as you would hardly be hitting a brisk walk and you just knew that the child was hating you for it. At the time the child was maybe 5 years old, could have been younger and I thought that eventually they would grow into it, start to see the benefit, start to enjoy it. Wrong. For the next 7 years when I ran with the youngest they never, ever enjoyed the experience and it was really frustrating for me aswell. At this point I am going to state that, “maybe things will change” and my daughter will enjoy running but who knows.
I only say frustrating, because what you need to understand from the outset regarding the Parkrun, is that it is a race. You will either be racing against yourself; the time you posted last week, the best this year, or your personal best. Or, you will be racing against people that you spot every week. Now, some people go down to Parkrun with their friends, but for the past 5 years, I have either gone with my child, or more likely I have gone alone. I do have mates, but I do not do the Parkrun with them. The thought of ringing up my mate and saying, let’s go for a 30 minute run to catch up does not make sense to me. I prefer to run alone. Although, when you do Parkrun without friends, I think it is pretty normal to feel that you most definitely not alone.
If I think about the 3 parts of a 5k race which is essentially a short period of time, no more than about 30 mins. There is the start, when you are trying to settle into a rhythm, land on your pace, and try and avoid either being tripped up, or tripping someone else up. Then you have the middle, which is where you start to hit your stride, think about your finish time and try and manage your breathing. Finally, there is the final section, which is where you realised you have either pushed yourself too hard already and are clinging on, or you find that there is a bit more in the tank and you can drive a bit harder with the end in sight.
At each part of the Parkrun you will spot someone that you will be competing against. I am not sure how I feel about them. Sometimes they will be my absolute enemy, and I will want to destroy them. Mostly those are the people that I see every week that are consistently better than me, but in my mind I should be beating them. I am a bloke, and generally I think I should be beating girls. Now, that makes no sense when you look at my PB, but blokes have pride and are generally stupid. Hold my beer type stupid. Anyway, no need to dig too deep into my phsyche on that, the point is there are girls in the Parkrun that can easily and consistently beat me and and I will always target them to try and gain some form of revenge. It rarely happens but that is why you go back every week. Then, there are people that finish in and around the same time as me week in, week out. I have no contempt for them and treat them like a pal. If they are not there in any week then I can sometimes worry about them. Oooh, I hope they are ok as they must be ill or why would they leave me to do this on my own. There are also some children, under 12s, and they can fall into the category of I must destroy them, as how on earth can a child that does not know anything beat me. Many of them do on a weekly basis.
My PB is 26 mins, 38 secs, which in my opinion is not good. However, on the plus side, it does give plenty of room for improvement, so motivation is always reasonably high.