PARK LIFE

I can blame my parkrun addiction on the pub,” says Paul Shipman. “I’d gone for a drink at The Twisted Barrel in Coventry and one of my wife's friends asked me what sort of running I'd been doing. I told her I'd just been putting my trainers on and going along the street, and she said, ‘We should do parkrun.’

“Two pints in, I foolishly asked what she meant and she explained that every Saturday morning you get to Memorial Park for 9am and run 5k. I said I’d go with her, and the parkrun spiral started from there.”

Shipman, in his mid-30s and working in HR, had taken up running after his son was born two months premature. Running became a cathartic coping mechanism during that highly stressful period of his life. To start, he’d grab his trainers for a jog round the block, “because the street is always open,” before parkrun entered his life and became not only a treasured pastime, but an “incredible change for good” for his mental health.

Five years ago, Shipman was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. “Everybody