Post-injury trust issues

A parkrun DNF and rebuilding the trust in my legs

On Saturday morning, I logged the fourth DNF of my parkrun career. The first one was during what was due to be my very last London parkrun before moving to Bristol back in 2019, when I slipped over in the mud on Clapham Common and ended up getting better acquainted with the Race Director’s first aid kit than the finish line. Numbers two and three, predictably, involved hangovers.

The fourth happened last week. I was back in Northampton for the weekend to celebrate my aunt’s 60th birthday and headed to parkrun with my dad to get some fresh air before the party. We did a chatty two mile warm up around the reservoir and then made our way to the start line. It’s a smaller event and I was on track for 2nd woman (as always, my placing had very little to do with my own performance and a lot to do with who decided to stay in bed that day) until my calf seized up just after halfway.

It happened just at that point where parkrun starts to feel horrible so it took me a few seconds to work out whether it actually did hurt, or if I was just looking for an excuse to slow down. I decided it really didn’t feel great and resigned myself to hobbling back to the car. Along the way I was offered words of encouragement by pretty much every single runner who overtook me. “Keep going, nearly there!” they enthused kindly, much to my embarrassment.