Recently I laced up my Brooks Glycerin and took the Tube a couple of stops north to run my one-hundredth Parkrun. I deliberately picked Tooting Common, as that’s where I ran my first back in May 2018. I only just arrived in time – missing a milestone shout-out – but otherwise, there was no drama, only the satisfaction in achieving it.
My previous milestone run didn’t go as smoothly. I ran my 49th on the first of February 2020. Work and weather conspired against me for a few weeks. Then as I was ready for run 50, COVID hit properly, and Parkrun was cancelled until mid-20211.
As nice as the milestones are, the real achievement for me is that I’ve kept running all this time. I don’t think I’ve ever had an exercise regime that I’ve kept up for so long and so consistently.
- The last in 2020 was on 14 March. The next didn’t occur until 31 July 2021. Having avoided getting COVID, it took a couple of months before I was comfortable going back to running in big groups.] ↩︎