The birthday gift of a parkrun with my son
He's 14 and has always said he hates running, so I'm surprised when my son agrees to run a 5km parkrun with me
I’m tired, hungover, it’s my birthday and my heel is hurting after a 20km run the day before. By rights, I should still have my head buried in my pillow, not be up and getting ready to do a parkrun. But this is no ordinary parkrun Saturday. Today, my son, Ossian, who is 14, has agreed to run it with me.
Long-time followers of my adventures will know that my kids have definitely not caught the running bug. I was careful not to force running on them in any way, stepping back and hoping that maybe one day I might inspire them to have a go, and they might actually enjoy it. Every now and then they show a flicker of interest. Uma choose cross country as her PE option at school, and she occasionally goes for a run for fitness. Ossian once ran a marathon across a month to raise money for his school.
But they always make a point of telling me how much they don’t enjoy running. So when I suggested to Ossian that for my 50th birthday, I’d love it if we did a parkrun together, I wasn’t expecting him to say yes.
“Sure,” he said casually, as though it was nothing.
Over the weeks leading up to my birthday, I brought it up every now and then, just to check he understood what he’d agreed to and hadn’t simply misheard me or something. But each time it seemed clear that he understood we’d be running 5km in a (sort-of) race, and he was fine about it.
I was excited. It has always felt a shame that I can’t share my love of running with my children in any way, that they look at it with such disinterest. Of course, that is fine, and they have many other wholesome, healthy interests, but it would certainly be a thrill to be able to run together with them. I shared my excitement about the race with my running friends, who joked that I’d presented Ossian with little choice: no pressure but it’s my 50th birthday and it will ruin my day if you don’t do it. They sent me a hilarious clip from a film of a man trying to get his son to do something. The kid says: “Dad, this is not my dream, it’s your dream.” The dad, emotional, breaking down, shouts back: “But it’s a good dream.”
I guess I did have a sort of vision of how nice it would be to run with my son, but really, I didn’t mind. I know that as a 14-year-old I ran because I was good at it and I enjoyed winning races. But it wasn’t fun in the same way playing football or rollerskating was fun. It was hard work. It was tiring. I get it that not everyone loves running, especially teenagers.
But it was happening. Here I was, on my 50th birthday, hobbling around in my running gear, advising Ossian on what shoes to run in.
When we got there, we did a little warm-up jog. Damn, I could barely run. I hadn’t been able to resist doing a longer run with two friends the day before as a sort of birthday treat. I don’t know when I started seeing a long run as a treat, but at some point it happened. Extra time out to run around in the countryside; it is a treat, no doubt. But my longest run in about four months had badly aggravated my glitchy heel and it was still sore this morning.
Still, I was here for Ossian. I could just limp around slowly. He told me he didn’t want me to run with him, but to go and run my own race. “You go and win it,” he said. He insists that I’m a professional runner, despite me insisting that getting paid to write about running is not the same thing as being a professional runner. But he won’t hear it. “You’re a professional runner,” he tells me. “But I’m 50,” I say. “That doesn’t matter,” he replies adamantly.
I tell him not to expect me to be near the front, while at the same time pointing out that I have come third at this parkrun before - just so he knows I am OK at running, despite what is about to happen. Regardless, he doesn’t want me running with him. But he does want some advice on how fast he should run.
I tell him just to get into a flow with the people around him, running at a pace he feels he can keep up for a while. That’s not very specific, I realise, but as someone who has been running since I was nine, I don’t really know how else to describe pacing. We spot a friend of mine, Gavin, who says he is aiming to run the race in under 30 minutes. I suggest that Ossian runs with him - and then, I whisper to Ossian, if you’re feeling good near the end you can start to speed up.
I’m thinking sub-30 would be a good first effort for a 14-year-old who has never run more than a mile before. While part of me is secretly hoping he’ll smash out 22 minutes or something, I’m also aware that 30 minutes is a solid benchmark and anything under that will be very good going. If he does it feeling easy, then he has something to shoot for next time, right?
So while Ossian and Gavin line up next to the 30-minute sign, I wander a little further towards the front. A couple of runners I know from my training group at the running club are standing together right on the start line, clearly today’s two serious club runners. I don’t want to do anything stupid like trying to set off with them, what with my hangover and injury and everything. So I nod my hello and then sheepishly shuffle back into the crowd of regular folk.
OK, it’s time, we do the countdown and we’re off running. Or hobbling in my case.
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