Liz's parkrun journey, from tootles to marathons

By GreaterSport | 11 March 2020 | TAGS: parkrun, Community groups, Stories

Hear Liz's story of how starting parkrun as a way to socialise and improve fitness has brought much more to her life than that.

I started running in 2013, at parkrun, to help me get fitter and catch up with friends. I loved how it wasn’t “a race”, just a tootle, a run, a jog or even a walk. Its ethos really empowered me to feel that I was achieving something every week, sometimes a PB, sometimes just getting out of bed.

Everyone thought I was mad getting up at 8am to get the tram to Heaton Park to run three miles! Even my boyfriend, who eventually joined me. Since then I have become a 0-5k run leader successfully assisting with 3 groups of wonderful and empowering women (both run leaders and participants) achieve their goals and creating amazing friendships along the way. I have overcome my fear and joined a running club (Prestwich AC); ran multiple half marathons; ran 2 marathons; and taken part in RED January twice, raising £150 for MIND.

Running for me has been a love hate relationship; I love the highs of the PBs, the social runs, the pushing your body and mind to achieve new distances; and the time out from the everyday stresses to just BE. I hate the times when it’s raining, or it’s just too hard, or you just can’t be bothered but a run isn’t just about the running. It’s about learning to tackle the demons. Running for me is about reminding myself that life isn’t a race, it’s a tootle, and everyone is at different speeds.

parkruns are getting more and more people moving more across the country, to get involved in your local parkrun either as a walker, runner or volunteer head to the parkrun website here.