For the past 35 years I have always said I can’t run. When friends were doing couch to 5k I said I could never do that.

3 years ago my brother-in-law, Kevin Farnborough, was staying over for a family celebration and asked if anyone would do my local parkrun, Mole Valley, with him the next day. I’d never heard of parkrun before, but after a drink or two, I agreed! After the run I said “I am never doing that again!”

2 months later, on a family camping holiday near Bridport, Kevin suggested again doing the local parkrun. So five of us did St Mary’s, including my sister Jill and brother-in-law Tim, for their first time.

3 1/2 years later and I’ve done 122 parkruns in 65 locations.

Sadly within those 3 years Tim was diagnosed with cancer and gradually his health deteriorated. His older siblings Geoff, Jacky and Jon, plus other family members also started joining our weekly parkruns. We now try to run them together or one nearby to wherever any of us might be. Tim loved that we were all doing it and encouraged us to keep at it, including himself even when he was feeling very poorly. Devastatingly we lost Tim quite suddenly in December 2024. He was still doing parkruns until the weekend before he died.

Parkrun has brought our families much closer together and helped us support each other through very difficult times.

Tim would be so very proud of Jill doing the London Marathon next year. He would often say to us, in his quiet and reserved way, we should all do things out of our comfort zone!

It’s amazing that both Jill and Geoff were accepted to run it in memory of Tim for parkrun. It feels a very fitting charity to be supporting for all it has given us and so many others around the world.