I used to run a lot, or at least far more than I run now. That all kind of came to an end about 7 years ago when I turned my ankle over on a kerbstone one Saturday morning. Since then I’ve been plagued with one injury or another, the main problem being a tightening of my right calve.
Over the past few years I’ve left running behind and cycled far more, I’d always call myself a cyclist as opposed to a runner anyway but I also happen to not pick up injuries on the bike. But cycling the distances I enjoy requires putting a lot of hours on the bike and with a child on the way something may have to give. So over the last few mounts I’ve been endeavoring to find my running legs again, and so far, so good 
To help in this quest I’ve decided to take part in park run. It’s a free weekly 5km run that takes place on Saturday mornings in parks up and down the county, as well as in a few other countries. Its very simple, you register on line, print off your unique barcode, find your local run, turn up, run, have your code scanned and receive your result via text and e-mail. Here’s my first email:
Cannon Hill results for event #72. Your time was 21:02.
Congratulations on completing your 1st parkrun and your 1st at Cannon Hill today. You finished in 39th place and were the 34th gent out of a field of 246 parkrunners and you came 7th in your age category SM35-39. You can view the full set of results here.
21:02, not bad for my first 5km in about 7 years and no injury! I’ve some way to go to reach my best recorded 5km time of 17:53, but I’d be very happy to consistently run under 20mins with no injuries.
[...] we went along to an excellent antenatal class at Birmingham Women’s Hospital as well as a ‘Birth Rehearsal Day’ with Cat Morgan who runs the Pregnancy Yoga classes I’d attended throughout the pregnancy. [...]