York parkrun JOG ON meet-up
Written by Marc Brine
After a football match in Leeds that I already had a ticket for was moved to a Friday night (thanks Sky Sports) I decided to make the most of the situation, and started making arrangements to stay over and do a nearby parkrun the next morning.
To someone as addicted to the parkrun achievements app as me, the choice soon became pretty obvious: York parkrun, and the elusive letter Y for the Alphabet Challenge!
Knowing that there were probably people just as keen on collecting the Y as me, and that there hadn’t been many JOG ON mini meet-ups in the Yorkshire area, I thought I would add it to the JOG ON Crew Facebook group and see what happened. The response was good, and soon there were several names who had marked themselves as ‘going’.
The morning came, and after a precautionary check of the York parkrun Facebook page, due to the 0 degree temperature, I was happy to see that it was still on. I soon found myself parked up just outside York Racecourse.
As I jogged in search of the start area, I was glad of my JOG ON hoodie, not just for the warmth, but also for the level of visibility it gave me in the morning fog. It proved effective; before even reaching the purple sign, I received a message from fellow JOG ON ambassador Kayleigh who had seen me from her car!
Kayleigh and Chris joined me, and we jogged to the start area together, easily identifying more JOGONites whose electric orange shirts were gleaming through the mist. Introductions and re-acquaintances ensued. It was great to see Michelle and Antony for the first time since the Fountains Abbey meet-up last year, meet Neil for the first time, and welcome Andy and Emma all the way from Southampton. By happy coincidence, Andy and Emma had planned to visit York that weekend (and collect their Y!) before the meet-up had even been mooted.
As we chatted before the first timers briefing, it became apparent that none of us were chasing PBs that day. Kayleigh was nursing a niggle, Chris’ watch was telling him to take a rest day(!) and someone who shall remain nameless had sore shins after… enthusiastically celebrating at football the night before. If these weren’t reasons enough, upon turning around after the first timers’ briefing, we found ourselves towards the back of a crowd of over 700! Andy decided to weave his way forward, but the rest of us were happy to stay put.
York’s one and a half laps on what is a flat tarmac course mean it has definite PB potential, as long as you position yourself closer to the front than most of us did! After a congested start, I enjoyed moving through the gears as the run went on. By the end of the half lap, the runners had spread out sufficiently for me to jettison my JOG ON hoodie conveniently close to the finish line without the danger of running into someone as I did it! I cruised around for the rest of the 5K, finishing with a personal ‘par’ time and collected my finish token from a volunteer.
The fog and the number of runners made it difficult to know for sure how many of the JOG ON Crew were still on the course, so I positioned myself near the finish line to offer some encouragement and try to grab some photos. Andy joined me and we chatted in between cheering everyone over the line. It turned out that, while not quite a PB, Andy had just run one of his fastest 5K times.
We congregated post-run, and got the all important pictures with the York pop-up sign. After the signature ‘arms crossed; serious faces’ pic, the lady whom we had asked to take the pictures for us said: “That’s a good one!”
Kayleigh passed around mini flapjacks, which she and Chris had kindly brought with them, and we discussed where to go for a post-run coffee. Once we met there, good food, good drink and good company were the order of the day, as we talked running, life and anything until morning became almost afternoon.
And that’s it.
As I thought about writing this, I began looking for a hook; a tremendous running achievement, some kind of inspiring feat, some unusual and interesting coincidence.
But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became: sometimes the meet-up itself is story enough. Even if the run itself is just another 5K, it can lead to many other positives; a name on social media becoming ‘real life’; an orange shirt becoming a staunch ally on your running journey; a stranger becoming someone you can talk to for hours over pancakes, eggs on toast and coffee. The chats before and after; the handshakes, the smiles and the “We should do this again”.
People connecting. Through a love of running.
———
Thank you to Marc Brine for that story. If you think you have a running story you’d like to write a page or two about, you can send it to us at thisisjogon@gmail.com
