Volunteers & running

I was out running in my local park today and couldn’t help thinking about the importance of volunteers and the difference they make to running. For someone that prefers to run off-road through local parks and open spaces, it doesn’t seem like that many years ago that I didn’t feel comfortable running on my own around the local parks and always made a point of teaming up with someone. A number of the local parks had suffered from anti-social behaviour, the playgrounds were vandalised and falling apart and people generally were not using the parks that much.

Thankfully this has all changed due to local volunteers setting up park groups and getting things sorted. Today I ran several laps around Arnos Court Park - there’s a great hill - so although the park is relatively small I can concentrate on hill work.  With a new playground, and regular park events, the park has become a focal point for the local community and is used by lots of people. I no longer feel nervous running through the park on my own as there are always other people there. Today there was even an outdoor fitness class going on. I linked up my run with a quick ramble through Arnos Vale Cemetery and stumbled upon (not literally) more volunteers working on clearing some of the undergrowth. Again this is a place I wouldn’t have run through a few years back, but the work of the volunteers has transformed the place, making it somewhere where people want to come and visit time and time again.

Then of course we have all the volunteers that help out at running events throughout Bristol and beyond. Most of these events wouldn’t be possible without volunteers.

So I’d just like to say a big thank you to all you volunteers out there for making Bristol a better place and a great place to run!