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.”