PARK LIFE

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS IN A LEAFY CORNER OF WEST LONDON, PARKRUN HAS SPARKED A FITNESS REVOLUTION. EVERY SATURDAY MORNING, UP AND DOWN THE COUNTRY – AND INDEED AROUND THE WORLD – WALKERS, JOGGERS AND RUNNERS OF ALL SHAPES, SIZES, AGES AND ABILITIES HEAD TO THEIR LOCAL PARK FOR A FREE, TIMED 5K EVENT. BUT WITH ITS EMPHASIS ON COMMUNITY AND INCLUSIVITY, IT HAS BECOME MORE THAN JUST A SERIES OF RUNNING EVENTS: FOR MANY, IT’S AN OUTLET – A SAFE CONSTANT IN THEIR WEEKLY ROUTINE

- Kieran Devlin

I can blame my park run addiction on the pub,” says Paul Shipman. “I’d gone for a drink at The Twisted Barrel in Coventry and one of my wife's friends asked me what sort of running I'd been doing. I told her I'd just been putting my trainers on and going along the street, and she said, ‘We should do park run.’

“Two pints in, I foolishly asked what she meant and she explained that every Saturday morning you get to Memorial Park for 9am and run 5k. I said I’d go with her, and the park run spiral started from there.”

Shipman, in his mid-30s and working in HR, had taken up running after his son was born two months premature. Running became a cathartic coping mechanism during that highly stressful period of his life. To start, he’d grab his trainers for a jog round the block, “because the street is always open,” before park run entered his life and became not only a treasured pastime, but an “incredible change for good” for his mental health.

Five years ago, Shipman was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. “Everybody knew it was coming,” he explains, “including me, but I'd avoided going to the doctors and being treated, and I couldn't cope with it.”

With the issues around his son’s birth, his diagnosis, and a stressful duration in his career, Shipman found running therapeutic. “Running is mine,” he says. “The only person it relies on is me, the only person it’s down to is me.”

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

Popping along to Coventry’s Memorial Park that Saturday morning proved even more revelatory. Shipman met a friend of a friend, and then another, and they ran together at an easy pace. He was applauded by the stewards as he went around, and when they finished he and his new mates went for coffee.