If only I could find my training shoes
I’m not a runner. I can’t think of anything worse than deliberately choosing to go out to pound down a pavement in my running gear, crippled with a stitch, sweaty of groin, moist of brow, with that hot coppery sensation of burning lungs struggling against cold air. (Ah – the memories of P.E. at school. What a joy it is to have escaped that misery.) However, I don’t live a million miles away from where this Parkrun malarkey has been taking place. I’m astounded at the extent to which the public seem to have got their knickers (or should that be leotard?) in a twist over this. What I’ve really struggled with is why the public has reacted in the way they have. The parish council never said to Parkrun, or its members, that they couldn’t run in the park. They simply said, you can either pay a nominal fee for running together as a group – to cover hogging the changing facilities, showers etc. – or you’ll have to run in the park as individuals. Personally, as a pedestrian who chooses to us…