Final seconds of the Robin Hood Half Marathon 2023

David Lloyd writes:

At school, I’d type neat letters to my Games teacher asking I be let off the lesson owing to some rare illness – and my mother would dutifully sign them.  One of my brothers once moaned that she never helped him escape his painful PE, to which she replied: "well, you didn’t bother typing your own letters".  

Sport or exercise of any kind has never been my thing. But there comes a time in life when you realise you need to do something.  Not least when press articles suggest that you should have the same waist size as when you were 18, or something like that, and you gaze down and realise that it really isn’t.

Knowing I needed a little encouragement, I signed up Tall Rob as my PT coach.  Alas, if you can’t motivate yourself, you have to pay someone to do it for you - as it’s a lot easier just to turn up than dream up yet more excuses. That went well, but Tall Rob suggested I really needed some twice-weekly action to see any real benefit – so I wondered what else I might manage.

Running! Not a team game. A solitary pursuit that would suit me - and just a step up from the fast walking I do naturally anyway through impatience.

I’d read about parkrun – the weekly 5k runs in parks and open spaces held on Saturday mornings. There are over 1300 across the UK alone – with more across 23 countries in the World. You sign up to get your bar code, then turn up with it at any parkrun anywhere – and run.  It’s all simple and free.

The great thing is you need not worry about failure at parkrun - or worry about what to do. No one holds you to acccount or expects anything - and you will never be last. A smiling tail walker in a fluorescent jacket supports those for whom a 5k speedy walk alone is a brilliant thing to have achieved. It’s an incredible movement.

In November 2018, I turned up for my first parkrun in ancient clodhopping trainers and managed to shuffle around the course. With that first PB ('personal best' - but I didn't know the term until I started running!) under my belt of just under 28 minutes, my only goal was to beat it. Parkrun perfectly combines the environment for fiercely competitive gangly teens who bound around in 15 minutes - with heartwarming encouragement for those who take just a little longer.

Wearing rather flashier trainers, I now turn up regularly for parkrun locally - or wherever else I’ve been working or holidaying - including a refreshingly flat Brighton where I claimed my current 21’41” PB last year. My other half has even surprised me by taking part.

Aside from my practice midweek runs and joining a local running club I found the calendars for all the local 10k runs – and signed up for the Robin Hood Half Marathon (1 hour 43 mins!). There’s little to rival the feeling of running down familiar streets in your city with crowds applauding, banging pots and pans and shouting out your name. I am hugely competitive with myself.

Running becomes a true community although fellow runners will understand how easy it is to become a running bore. I try not to dwell on the topic too much on my radio show - but it’s always great when fellow runners hear the clues on-air and drop me a line.

Alas, injuries are easy at our age, and I’ve been hamstrung by a hamstring and my Achilles has been my Achilles heel, but I’m now cautiously back on the course. It felt so good in March to be back out there again, running the Nottingham 10k in the sunshine around the city, striding up the painful last hill to the finish line at the Castle with a 46’18” time.

For the little lad who didn’t turn up for PE, how great to be on the ‘podium’ at last, aged 64, with one of the best times for my age group that day. I’m also healthier than I have been in years. Here’s to the next Robin Hood half marathon and/or the Great North Run.

If you fancy it – just try it. It’s addictive.