“I run for two reasons – community, and to prove myself.
I love getting outside and doing things; I’m terrible at sitting still unless I’m exhausted. I was keen to find a group of similar people to regularly connect with but didn’t have the ability to consistently commit to big full weekend trips. That was when I found parkrun.
The first time I went I remember thinking ‘there has got to be easier ways to make friends’ while I was dragging myself up the stairs of despair, but the connections and friendships I have made, along with the constant encouragement everyone gives each other makes it a worthwhile slog. I’ve found such a welcoming community of incredible people out doing awesome things and it’s brilliant.
I had tried running on and off since I was a teenager but a combination of type 1 diabetes and asthma made it feel really hard. What made it more difficult was the reality that if I was alone running and had a bad hypo (low blood sugar) there is no one to help you if you’re out alone, you’re a bit stuck and to me, that made it scary. Running with type 1 diabetes is a bit of a balancing act of carb intake vs energy output, and calculating medication, in combination with predicted metabolism. I’ve worked in medical research and education for diabetes, so I have a solid understanding of how to work things, but I just seemed to struggle getting it right for myself.
Over the years I looked for help and I always got met with the same response ‘it sounds like this isn’t the sport for you’ or from an athletics coach’s ‘you should take up chess’. I felt like I was just being told that my body was too broken, not working correctly, and weak. Running was something anyone could do, except me.
In my first year of Uni I was assaulted. As a woman, that experience changes the way you view yourself and your body. I went from feeling strong and sure of my strength and ability when I did shot put at high school, to feeling weak and pathetic. I saw some stats on an IG reel once, they could be made up but they said that ‘only 6% of the world population is running, if you can run 5km then you are in the top 10%, that the average time for women to run 5km is 36:24, and the average for men is 31:18’. You’ve got to be strong to join that club, mentally and physically.
I am a teacher and I am always telling my students they have to try things, I will always help them but they have to prove they have tried first. We talk about failing, messing up, anxiety, being scared and not getting the results we want but we also talk about how doing big things and failing or missing the mark, while being anxious or scared is a huge accomplishment and what we can learn from it to improve next time. I wouldn’t be a very good example if I didn’t follow my own advice, even if my students never find out. So I decided I was going to run. It encompasses all the things I’m scared of; going hypo and no one helping me, not finishing a run because I’ve gotten my diabetes calculations wrong, not being fast enough because I’m not strong or capable enough. I want to prove to myself and everyone who says I can’t or it’s too difficult for me, that I can, and I will.
My running goals for 2025 are to volunteer for a big run, get my parkrun time as close to 30 minutes as I can, and to enter a 10km and finish in under 1 hour 15 minutes. Since I started running I’ve worked up to running 5km without needing to walk, and taken my parkrun time down by over seven minutes. But more importantly I feel so much better, happier, stronger, fitter, more capable in general and have an incredible community of people to show up with. Even if I don’t make any of my goals, I feel so much better in myself, that it doesn’t matter.”
Hope @hopie_duncs
(Dunedin)
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