The Magic of parkrun

So although plenty seems to be happening, most of it is not sitting at a keyboard writing down my thoughts. Which seems like a shame because I reckon I've been having some rippers. Can I think of any of them right now, not one. Well thats not quite true, I have a couple that will probably come up during this post but if they don't, trust me, they were off the scale brilliant. Anyway I've been wanting to write about the magic of parkrun, a free weekly timed 5km run at a park near you. And although I don't believe in anything remotely mystical or magical, unicorns or fairies, there is something quite magic that happens when these groups get together every Saturday morning at 8am. I first heard about park run through my mate Jeremy Savage's posts on Facebook, I'd met Jeremy through riding bikes and he's been mentioned on this blog before in reasonably glowing terms. Jeremy loves parkrun so much that he got involved in setting up a new park run at Canning River, then one in Gosnells. I started going along about a year ago when Jeremy was involved in starting up Canning River, it's hard to explain but the vibe is so good at these events, the encouragement, the general feeling of a group of people doing something they really enjoy. I usually attract my fair share of encouragement wherever I go, mainly because I'm a big guy having a crack, but the encouragement I see going to everybody, the applause as someone finishes, whether first or last is quite amazing. Now it seems like there are park runners wherever you go, at events all over the state, high fiving and supporting each other on to greater heights of running stupidity and achievement. I still don't know why it works and probably don't need to, but I'm glad it does. So for the moment it's the only magic I believe in.