irunoffroad

As I left Fareham parkrun the one thought that struck me was just how many people it had catered for. In essence a parkrun is a timed 5K, marshalled and organised by volunteers and open to anyone that has registered. We all had our barcodes and we’d all be running but there can be so many motivators for attending.

I thought I’d share my observations on just how well parkrun serves it’s loyal members, without necessarily naming all the people involved !!

Naturally this applies up and down the country and for that matter, across the world.

1. Family runners. These are such positive scenes with mums & dads encouraging their kids to run. It’s a shared interest, it’s healthy and it’s a great confidence builder.
2. The first timers. An officially organised race can often be a step too far for people who are working through their walk/jog/run phases. Parkrun is the perfect starting point to chart distances walked, jogged and run. It also offers countless encouraging voices.
3. The returning from injury runners. Testing your progress outside of a more pressurised race environment can be invaluable.
4. The returning to fitness runners. Not having run for a while doesn’t always follow on from an injury. Discovering your lost “mojo” in a friendly 5K can make all the difference.
5. Speed, whether it’s “out and out running speed”, running to complement another sport or like me, it’s good to throw in some lung busting as an alternative to my long steady runs and,
6. My final observation was simply the communal parkrun spirit that the returning weekly parkrunners share. I don’t parkrun that often as marathons are my distance but “I’ll be back”.

The speed of the results and the fantastic free photos, that are invariably available too, make the experience one to repeat.

Thanks very much to Fareham parkrun, Julie Salt and her team. I enjoyed my run, I loved my photo and I’ll also be back to volunteer at some stage.

#flying #fareham 🙂