The Running Bug.

For those looking to shift that Christmas turkey / goose / wild boar / nut roast, ward off the mid-winter blues and the swine ‘flu, I suggest getting the bones in motion at one of a number of free and friendly 5K parkrun events staged throughout the UK every Saturday morning at 9:00 am sharp.

The original and flagship parkrun is at Bushy Park, West London, which started in 2004 with a mere 13 runners but which now typically attracts over 400 runners of mixed ability. At the elite end, the great Australian distance runner Craig Mottram holds the course record, an eye-watering 14 minutes flat (the women’s record is held by Katrina Wootton of Bedford & County AC at 16:20) but the usual victor will be a local London club runner, typically clocking in the region of 16 minutes. I say ‘victor’ but this is not a true reflection of the parkrun ethos, which is about personal time-trial performance. It’s all about pitching up, laying down a time and then putting the work in to improve upon this time in subsequent weeks. If you get the bug good and proper, there are plenty of athletics clubs to get involved with and enjoy the cut and thrust of competition – be it cross-country, road racing or track.

Parkrun is very much a local community grassroots enterprise and relies upon a whole host of volunteers - usually the runners themselves - rotas being drawn-up at the start of the month to assign bods to register runners, marshall, take photos and of course, record the times of every participant. Organisational costs are covered by sponsors Nike, Lucozade and Sweatshop.

So, don that old pair of trainers and “Go, Forrest, go!”