Run Actually

To me, running is perfect?

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the finish funnel at parkrun. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of Hyrox and Reformer Pilates, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that running is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends, awkward coworkers who’ve been roped into Tuesday Run Club & Beers. When the planes hit…

OK, we’ll stop there with the Love Actually rip-off because I’ll get cancelled if I say something about people pausing their Garmins.

The best Christmas gift a girl could ask for: a non-horrific race photo (“I look quite pretty!”)

But you get the gist. The gist is I need to publish a Christmassy Substack post which is challenging when, at this time of year, most of us have either given up on exercise entirely or are trying to halfheartedly squeeze our runs in between Bailey’s servings, Argos pickups and “Let’s circle back in the new year!” emails, in my case while the kids are at home all the time, off their faces on candy canes.

And the gist is also that I still really like watching Love Actually every year, despite all the problematic stuff around body image, workplace affairs and Keira Knightley looking 12. Admit it, you actually love it too.

But (actually), December so far has been a good month for running (I got a big PB at the Stevenage half last weekend) and an even better month for feeling all warm and fuzzy about what running means to me.

It means not worrying about my Strava data to tail-run a Secret London Runs Christmas lights tour for the second year, and realising how lucky I am to live in a city that looks like this.

And this.

And this.

It means celebrating how, over almost 30 years, a friendship has evolved from binge-drinking and band-stalking to getting up at 6am to run a half marathon together.

It means knowing it’s worth peeling your hungover self out of bed on a Saturday to breathe in the wintry beauty of an often overlooked park in Catford and connect with friends old and new at parkrun.

As is the annoying way with evangelism, being obsessive about running makes me want everyone else to feel obsessive — but the good news is, it doesn’t have to be running! My Christmas wish (well, I already got the PB and the not-hideous race photo) is that in 2026 more of you find your thing. Because it’s so great when Having A Thing goes way beyond the obvious physical benefits to change and enhance so many parts of life, forever. But to get to that point, you have to find Your Thing and stick to it — and that’s the hard bit, but I keep banging on about it because I know this silly Substack has already helped some of you a tiny bit.

For me, though, it seems that thing is running. God only knows what I’d be without you.