How a friend request changed it all!

I have had some requests to explain the comments about Emma Drake following my earlier post. Emma made a huge difference to my life this year for two reasons.

The first was following her request to add me as a friend on Facebook. Previously I had a strict policy- I only had friends that I actually knew, and if it topped 100 I had a cull! I had a few old school mates on there, some added briefly to have a quick catch up and maybe a chat, but often that lapsed into inactivity. Anyway, when I got the request I didn’t know who she was but the name did seem familiar- eventually I checked the Leeds parkrun results and found that Emma was one of those who always seemed to catch me at the end of a parkrun!!

What happened when I added Emma was we talked about running. What it meant to me was a connection with both someone who was so positive and encouraging and a community that was to become such an important part of my life!

Before that I had really only got to know 2 people at parkrun- Graham Pawley used to park next to me every week so we chatted (he is based at Roundhay!), and Paul McCormack who unwittingly was my original nemesis (running-wise!). Paul used to catch me on my earlier runs as I died on the last lap (uphill!) but after a while I managed to pull away from him- when I introduced myself he confessed to be doing this to get to 100, then he planned to stop! Last time I looked I am sure he was up to about 114- I even saw him doing the Abbey Dash 10k and we encouraged each other as we passed! No idea what his motivation is but respect for his efforts!

Anyway, I started to add parkrunning friends on Facebook and before long my Saturday news feed was full of people sharing their enthusiasm for their free Saturday morning run and social with friends. That really got me hooked on the community that is parkrun, rather than just enjoying (??!) the 25 minutes or so that I was struggling round those 3 laps in Hyde Park!

So with my Facebook feed now filling up with running talk, posted Garmin runs and increasing encouragement I started to get to know people and that made my Saturdays much more enjoyable, and not just people from Leeds- I have had some very random chats with people from all over the country who share the same passion!! I was now officially hooked- rather than liking to do parkrun I now needed to! And all this down to a simple add friend request on FB and a few chats about running. It took us quite a while to actually meet but when we did I felt I owed an awful lot to Emma Drake!

The second reason- can wait for now as I am sure I have rambled on enough for now!