Going back to starting parkrun in 2009 and then again in 2010, it seemed completley natural to offer to help out and just muck in with the rest of the guys setting up and tidying away. Over the years, I've given most things a go on the parkrun volunteer roster and this easily led to leading runs with my running club, joining the club committee responsible for one of our run nights, then stepping in to the club secretary role and finally chairman.
Some might say that is a lot of giving back to the running community and well done me for doing it. Thanks. But that's not how I see it at all. There is no duty here, no thought of guilt about getting something for free and needing to pay my dues and no "giving back" to the community.
Volunteering is a great privilage and a great opportunity where I get to meet and make friends who share my love of running. I get to talk to new people every week who are happy to see me. I get to learn new skills and develop others. I get to help people achieve their goals, to gain confidence and realise they can do great things. But outside of volunteering, just talking to someone who is struggling on a run, a kind word, a bit of advice and the reward is special. I've had lots of peole meet me after a marathon and thank me for getting them through it when they were ready to give up.
Looking for new running experiences and new things to learn led me to try guide running for visually impared runners. I started by going to an England Athletics training course on VI awareness and guide running, although you don't have to do this. I learnt about different forms of visual imparement, techniques for guide running and a bit of practical training leading a blindfolded runner and being blindfolded myself and trying to run - very unsettling.
A few weeks later, having joined the Basingstoke Guide Runners facebook page, I got an opportunity to guide Tony at Basingstoke parkrun. It was fun; a very slow jog round an easy course with a nice chat with Tony. A couple of weeks later and I was back at Basingstoke guiding Sandra, this time walking.
Come to October this year and Prospect parkrun had been going for a couple of months and there was a VI runner, Lisa, who wanted to run there. I booked myself in the roster for guiding and got some advice from the volunteer coordinator about what kind of runner Lisa was. Apparently, quite new to running and running in a park, but getting close to 30 minutes for a 5k, didn't want to run with a tether or be in contact with a guide runner. Interesting. How was I going to manage this?
I got to Prospect park on time, met the volunteers and met Lisa a few minutes later. We discussed her visual imparement, what she could and couldn't see in different light conditions - bright sunshine and sparkling dew resulted in complete white out - and how she wanted to run, slow and chatty or shut up and go for it. It was somewhere in between, although as a guide you have to keep talking, describing the terrain, the dips and rises, cross falls, changes in surface and avoiding potholes, roots and other runners.
The course is all on grass and gently undulating. We set off near the back of the pack rising up hill to get to a huge oak tree then left along a gentle downslope around the perimeter of the main park, detoured around a bog, a football pitch and turned through the centre of the park, running in step matching her right foot to my left. As a guide there is work to do on this run, lots of sharp turns you count down in to, dips and rises, tree roots, rutted paths. You run over the hazard yourself and guide your runner to the smoothest path.
It's not up to me to push the pace but I could hear Lisa was breathing hard uphill so I try and keep the effort constant and recover a bit on the downhills. We try and leave something for the climb to the great big oak tree at the top of the course and the turn to the finish. The time? Well the time was just right.
Blue sky and whispy clouds, diamond dew, swishing through leaves, crunching acorns, in step. Beautful. Running. Joy.
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