It was with more than a little trepidation that I agreed to accompany my wife on the latest ParkRun ...

Due to a reoccurring injury my training had been a little sporadic to say the least. I'd been out three times in ten weeks. It wasn't going to be pretty.

Saturday morning broke with the perfect excuse not to run, it was raining and had been all night.  Anyone who has spent any time in Eaton Park will immediately recognise the problems this brings. For one reason or another Eaton Park is blessed (or cursed) with awful drainage that sees sizable puddles appear at the mear mention of rain. This meant my wife offered me the perfect "get out" clause. She didn't really fancy it, but would go if I was determined would go ahead. I thought about it, and as this was going to be her first organised run. I actually quite like running in the wet and decided there was no point in wasting the babysitter we had arranged. Rock and roll!

For anyone that hasn't been on a ParkRun they are exactly the same as any other 5K run anywhere in the world. They have people that will run sub 17 minutes and people that will take the best part of an hour. There is only one major difference ...

They are free, gratis and organised by people who do it for the love of running.

We attended the pre-race briefing and then wandered over to the start line, all the time bumping into friends, fellow club (tri-anglia & VC Norwich) members and even a few customers.

I dutifully took my place near the back as I had agreed to act as "paceman" and run at 6.00 mins/km. This promise didn't last long, after the first 3/4 of the 1st of 3 laps I was dismissed from my duties and sent off to run at my own pace. I set off at a moderate pace. After the first lap I started to catch a few people I recognised and my competitive streak started to kick and I increased my speed little by little. A quick glance at my Garmin ForeRunner told me that I was hovering around 5.15 mins/km, not spectacular by any means but the ache reminded me not to push it.

By this point the rain had stopped leaving only puddles to contend with. I feel that I should point out at this point that "puddle" doesn't really do these justice. Most were the full width of the path and 2 metres long and over. The main issue isn't actually the water, more the disruption to pace / direction it caused. Some preferring to run through, some going around and a few changing their minds half way!

The second lap saw Radek come flying past to lap me on the way to recording his PB of 16.59.  I crossed the line in an unremarkable 26.37.

If I was honest it wasn't as good as I had hoped, but it was better than I feared.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone, if only to remind us lapsed runners the fun that can be had in a park with 182 other people, wearing shorts on a wet Saturday in February.

ParkRun Norwich is held every Saturday at 9am in Eaton Park. Further details can be found at

www.parkrun.org.uk/norwich