This past weekend, I celebrated my parkrun birthday and what a first year its been.
What followed was a year of great running with lots of significant wins and personal bests.
1 year of new friends who quickly became friends for life.
1 year of great company, laughs, coffee, and conversation.
1 year of exciting challenges and shared successes.
And, of course, a year in which I achieved my goal of completing the Great North Run.
After GNR, and especially after my injury, I had no idea if I’d want to continue long-term running. That said, I always knew parkrun would be part of my life forever. Anyone who knows me outside of running is surely tired of how evangelical I know I am about it. Parkrun has changed my world; it has magic in it. I’ve seen that magic manifest for me and for so many others; I am keen to share it with as many new people as I can.
So, I celebrated my parkrun birthday in the best way possible….with another parkrun. Nik was away last weekend but her absence made way for another newbie to join our amazing group of guide runners. As you’ll have seen from our socials, Karen and Maryanne both made their guiding debuts over the past 2 weeks. Both were absolutely fantastic guides and made the runs thoroughly enjoyable and so easy for me, you’d have thought they’d been doing it forever.
I will never fail to be deeply inspired and motivated by the numbers of people willing to give guide running a go. In my first year, I’ve never once turned up to parkrun to be told there wasn’t a guide available to run with me; I know that is not the case in other regions/events.
The commitment of these guide runners not only opens parkrun to me but makes our event truly inclusive to many other visually impaired runners. We hope it inspires you to pick up your running shoes and join us.
To complete the birthday celebrations, I went along to Drumpellier Junior Parkrun on Sunday, where Nik and I volunteered as tailwalkers. We joined Ryan who is completing his Duke of Edinburgh award and has been volunteering at Juniors since it returned post lockdown. I absolutely love being part of juniors - the kids are super-fast, motivated and just adorable to watch. From the tiny tots doing their first parkruns to the young people who clearly have athletics careers ahead of them; it’s a brilliant energy to witness and be part of. We were delighted to receive a message of thanks from a Mum for encouraging and helping her daughter to finish her first Junior parkrun.
I had another reason for attending this week though. My amazing friend and fellow runner, Sam, over at
It is a skill I’ve long since wanted to acquire but have always been overlooked for First Aid Training at work or blocked from attending external courses. This being due to apparent ‘health and safety concerns. Some of those concerns might be justified, however this speaks to a wider issue in society. An issue where blind people are seen as the recipients of care/medical attention rather than actually being called upon to help in a crisis. So, being the rebel I am, I was keen to break that trend.
I had another, more personal reason for wanting to learn CPR though. My husband has a genetic disposition to heart issues inherited from both sides of his family. Both his parents have had heart bypass surgery and one night, after returning from an outing with friends, he found his dad collapsed on the floor. He had to perform CPR until medical help arrived. Obviously, it’s a skill I hope I will never have to use but when I left the park on Sunday, I felt so much more at peace knowing I might just be able to make a difference to someone’s life expectancy if the worst happened.
Crucially, a lack of sight is absolutely no barrier to performing CPR. The technique is all about feeling for a heartbeat, a breath, and signs of life. If these are not present, its all about touch - feeling for the correct point on the chest to place your hands, feeling the depth, pace and timing of each chest compression, feeling your body weight behind your hands and syncing each compression to your breath, rather like a meditation. Whether visually impaired or not this really is a basic skill everyone should know.
So, with my parkrun birthday behind me, our thoughts turn to ‘what next?’ and what to do with Vision2Run?
I am not expecting to undertake any major running events for a while as I need to prioritise my studies for the next few months. Running wise, it will be all about parkrun with the odd 10K race thrown in for good measure.
In saying that, I think Nik and I have (sort-of), agreed that I’ll be doing a marathon at some point. (Nik interjects - there is no ‘sort of’ about it; I believe your exact words were ‘I’d be really annoyed if my Notch Bracelet did not have a marathon notch on it!) Anway, this will be done in #StandardRuth style, I’ll be doing this my way; we’ll share more about that next spring.
In the meantime, as many of you will know, training for such an event takes much more than running. It’s about building real strength. This can be done through swimming, circuit training, pilates, gym workouts and so much more. That is where our next project comes in.
Nik and I already know there are massive issues for VI folk when it comes to accessing mainstream sports and exercise provisions; we hope that we can start raising awareness of just how easy it can be to make these settings truly inclusive for all.
So, if you’re a PT, if you work at a local gym, or are in any way involved in the recreational sport and exercise space, do reach out to us through our channels and lets see if we can do something fantastic together.
Until then, thank you for reading and following us. Stay tuned for our next adventures
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