The Traditional Run

Since introducing my brother to Parkrun a few years back it has become a sort of tradition that when he comes home for Christmas (he lives overseas) that we attend the Christmas Day Parkrun (or the one closest to Christmas that also coincides with his visit). Hi then fiancé and now wife also joins us on this run. Today we were going to add another sibling to the run but sadly our younger sister had been struck down with a mystery illness rendering her unable to move from her nest of blankets.  

We arrived to gear some other runners discussing how todays route would be run backwards – and no not actually backwards – just in the other direction and therefore had a slightly different start point. It was also the Christmas themed fancy dress run so it was nice to see so many festive outfits and Santa hats bobbing around Norman Park when we started to run.

I hadn’t run for about a month but as this was tradition I donned my kit and lined up the rest making it clear to my brother and sister-in-law that they should not worry about leaving me behind as I was likely to be walking some of it. We started together and soon enough the gap between us widened and the runner of runners increased.

Trotting along my brain started to work overtime; should I just drop out and meet them at the car? this shouldn’t be feeling this difficult, I do have a lot of cooking to do when I return as today was our early Christmas Day…. As I piled on reasons (not excuses) to bail out I realised that I was on the last lap and it would be silly to stop now however sluggish I was feeling.

I reached the final stretch, put in a bit of a sprint – probably not to look at but that’s how it felt – and somehow managed to finish inbetween a couple who had run the together. I grabbed my token and went to find the others to record our finishing positions. I saw plenty of Petts Wood Runners around wishing the Happy Christmas and seasons greetings as we departed the part to head home for our festive feast.

Glad I finished, and whilst not delighted with the time at least I was started to run a little more regularly again which is a very good sign of my slow recovery.