Poised at #99

Ian Thomas has not let lockdown slow him down! In fact he has sped up!

Ian is now itching to test himself on the Southend course and log that 100^th parkrun.

I first went along to Southend parkrun in August 2017 introduced by my son, Rich who is a keen runner.

In the past, I had been a regular squash player and also a Hash House Harrier in Singapore, but more recently I had become very lax about exercising.

My first parkrun felt like quite a challenge in many different ways! I can remember thinking that the other 200 parkrunners around all looked much better dressed than me and were no doubt going to be much faster! I had my son with me, which put me at ease and I soon realised my worries were needless.

I enjoyed the challenge and could see how beneficial parkrun could be for my health and fitness, also how very sociable it was.

That was where it all began! 99 parkruns later with my average 5k time at Southend parkrun at 38:27 and my best time at 36:39 and just a whisker away from my 100 milestone, we went into COVID-19 lockdown in March.

Since the end of March I have kept up my exercising and embraced (not)parkrunning, logging all of them. I’ve been clocking 2 x 5k runs per week and I walk 5k on the other 5 days of the week.

Then, a couple of Saturdays ago, running alone, I smashed my 5k record coming in at 33:18, which is more than 3 minutes faster than my fastest parkrun!

I can’t wait to get back to parkrun to complete my 100^th parkrun and then many, many more after that! I miss having people to run with, to challenge me and to laugh and chat with after our efforts. My son follows my recorded runs online and without parkrun he is now my chief challenger and helps keep me motivated.

I would not be back in better shape than I have been for the past 15 or so years without parkrun. Thank you so much.

Ian Thomas