Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 131, June 2020 June 2020 | Page 24

ROAD RUNNING
Inspired by parkrun
The global parkrun movement has helped many people
get off the couch and get moving, as these three
stories from various corners of South Africa show.
My Impossible Journey
I ran my first 21K at the Edenvale Marathon on 8 March 2020. For me the achievement is more than remarkable, it was what
I refer to as My Impossible Journey, from not being able to run a parkrun 3 years ago. – BY GAVIN MOFFAT
I
have never been athletically gifted. At school I hated
sport, and my high school was one where you were
given some degree of social status based solely on
your sporting performance, while academic results
came second, and anything cultural, while enjoyed,
was not that highly regarded. I had no love for sport
and my parents were not sporty people. The end
result was never having a desire to partake in any
sporty activities for most of my life.
From my early 30’s, I tried mountain biking, on and
off. Mostly off. Health and wellness were not my
focus, but we ensured that our kids were given every
opportunity to enjoy sport and we supported them. I
didn’t want a repeat of the way I felt about sport and
health. Then just over three years ago, 22 April 2017,
my wife Ingrid and I did our first parkrun at Delta.
We did it because we needed to do something,
anything, to get the blood flowing, and a walk, with
some Vitality points as a carrot, seemed a great idea
at the time. I recall being out of breath, sweating
profusely and battling my way up ‘Polly shorts.’ You
see, at that stage I weighed around 128kg, and was
carrying nearly 46 kilograms of extra weight. I had no
idea just how overweight I was, until all of that weight
was gone.
Time for Change
Fortunately, I took some serious health and wellness
related decisions around June 2017 and took control
Gavin Moffat
of my health in a way that I had never done before.
Parkrun was not the cause of my shift, but was (and
still is) an incredible motivator. Its ability to subtly
and insidiously claw its way into my weekend. The
feeling of success, camaraderie, Vitality points, a
PB, a fellowship of humans. That morphed into my
being what is termed “a parkrun tourist” and visiting
locations I would never otherwise have gotten so
see. The Kraalkop parkrun, in Fochville, is a perfect
example. What ‘gees,’ what spirit! People engaged
in doing something they love and infectiously curious
about those around them.
For me, parkrun is the starting point for health and
wellness. When I started walking, I saw and felt the
value. Even if I hadn’t moved on to running a parkrun,
I would still have noticed the benefits. If you decide
to run them, you will soon begin to feel differently
about not only your body, but about what you put into
your body and, you may begin to see that you can be
physically different for yourself.
Mostly, running was not the thing that made me
healthy, it was the starting block that set me up for all
the other things that resulted in a healthier lifestyle.
When I exercise, I want to fuel myself appropriately by
cutting down on sugar, unhealthy fats, watching the
carbs, reducing processed foods, and increasing fruit
and vegetable intake. With exercise, this experience
has had a multiplier effect.
When I was what I refer to as “that-Gavin” (the
overweight one), conversation about being healthy fell
on my deaf ears. I was on the defensive. The space
I was in meant that the conversation was coming
across as criticism to me. Why wouldn’t I be defensive
and in denial? Life was filled with yummy food and
the couch. It took serious reflection and a shift of
Images: Courtesy parkrun South Africa
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ISSUE 131 JUNE 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za