10 Runs that Made Me #7 Frimley parkrun 23/6/2012

Another parkrun and another at Frimley Lodge. One of my slowest, but one of the most impressive runs I have seen. I came last, there were no tail walkers, just me and my daughter, 6 and a half years old. About 2 weeks before she had said that she wanted to come along to parkrun and run with me. We managed one lap, then she stopped and I finished the run trying to catch up with other runners - a nice work out! 

On this day in June 2012, Elinor had wanted to come along again, but this time at half way, she said she wanted to do the whole thing. We continued to jog and walk with no moaning about how hard it was, she just took hold of my hand when she wanted to slow down a bit and we finished in 42:39. 

As you can see from the parkrun results above she has continued to run most parkrundays over the the last few years and has over 200 runs. My son also started to run at parkrun not much later and is also on his way to 250 runs and this is along with loads of fun run medals.

Top Bombing by Elinor

Getting my kids to make parkrun a habit as normal as sitting down to Sunday lunch together feels like a great achievement. It makes exercise for them in general so much more fun and opens up opportunities for lots of other activities that they might shy away from if they felt it would be too much effort, or they might look uncool in front of their friends. 

I try to impress on both of them just how good their running is and how unusual it is these days when so much of our lives can be filled with sceen time. Then they go and prove it for themselves - Elinor, best in her year at a recent bleep test and Alfred just got a new PB at Frimley parkrun of 20:04.