Ladies and gentlemen – I am a runner again!

My latest visit to Achilles ended with him finally giving me permission to add running back to the list of things I am allowed to do. This is very exciting, even if by ‘running’ he means ‘run/walk, and with the running bits very slow’.

To celebrate, I went along to parkrun yesterday to join in the tail run party. Fellow Eagle, Ealing Half Marathon race director, parkrun champion extraordinaire and all round good egg Kelvin Walker was celebrating 100 runs and 200 volunteering spots and there was a plot for the back of the run to become the place to be this week.

This meant that the timing of my return from the running injury wilderness couldn’t have been better timed, as there were about 20 Eagles all excited to be joining Kelvin at the back (all ladies as it happened, the charmer!).

I was allowed to do 5 minutes on and 5 minutes off, so should have taken about 45 or 50 minutes but in the end we took over and hour, including some ‘running’ out and then doubling back to return to the lycra clad hareem that was Kelvin and his tail running honour guard.

Amazingly after 6 weeks of not being either used or charged, my Garmin held on to it’s last vestiges of battery to record my longest parkrun ever, at 3.75k (two other Eagles went back and forth so much they almost did 10k, just to make sure they crossed the line at the tail!).

My final time was 1hr 3 minutes and an age grading of 23%. Absolutely abysmal by normal standards, but recorded on Garmin Connect with pride as my first run back, hopefully, to full form and fitness.

It’s going to take a while to build back up and we’re not out of the woods yet, but yesterday’s parkrun was brilliant. After feeling like a fraud for 6 weeks every time I said ‘I’m a runner’,  just to be back in my kit again and out there with the Eagles gang felt great. The number of people who came up to me smiling to exclaim ‘you’re wearing trainers!’ or just generally to say they were pleased to see me back was really touching.

I really missed you, running! It’s nice to be home.