The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Warm-Up

Parkrun describes itself as a "free, 5km timed run". From humble beginnings in one single park in 2004, Parkrun now has hundreds of events, every Saturday mornings, in countries throughout Europe, in Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, and even now in the USA (see http://www.parkrun.com for more information).

Parkruns are all organised by a core team who rely on help from volunteers, and this week I volunteered - to be photographer!

My local Parkrun is Falkirk, and the event is held every Saturday morning at 0930 in the beautiful Callander Park. Beautiful and, today, bitterly cold. So cold that I was wearing my ski clothes, and STILL my hands just about froze off!

This was one of the first photographs I took on arriving today, of one solitary runner warming up by running round the horseshoe in front of Callander House. He wasn't as alone as he looked; just behind me over one hundred runners were starting to gather for the event. But it sure looked lonely!